Motorola announced earnings that beat analyst expectations, including a growing number of Android smartphones.
Motorola is coming up on its first year of Android sales (the original Droid was released November 2009) and has a 2.7 million unit quarter to show for it. That’s largely inline with the 2.69 million expected by analysts. As a comparison, Apple (AAPL) took six quarters to pass those numbers with its iPhone and iPhone 3G.
Motorola (MOT) shipped 8.3 million phones overall in the quarter which was above Motorola’s forecasts and Analyst expectations of 8.13 million. That total is down from last quarter’s 8.5 million but Android is significantly up from 2.3 million.
Motorola makes a lot more money per Android Smartphone than it does for ‘dumbphones’ so many will view this as a net positive for the company and the stock is up in morning trading. Verizon’s (VZ) Droid X from Motorola sales didn’t figure into these numbers as it was released after the quarter had closed.
Motorola will be split off into two companies next year.