Mobile phone maker Motorola has reported a small quarterly profit after selling more phones than expected and gaining market share in North America.
The company, number three in the world mobile phone market, also forecast a bigger full-year profit than expected.
The results and outlook prompted analysts to speculate that Motorola may have put the worst behind it, though the company may face challenges such as steep price cuts from phone market leader Nokia.
Nokia cut the prices of many of its phones by up to 10% in late July, according to market data and industry sources.
Motorola plans to launch 50 new phones this year including advanced handsets and said that it was making progress in its plans to split off the handset business, a move targeted for the third quarter of 2009.
It shipped 28.1 million phones in the second quarter and maintained its share of the market.
Motorola's second-quarter profit was $4m, compared with a loss of $28m a year earlier. Revenue fell 7% to $8.1 billion but topped the average forecast made by analysts.
Motorola has been losing market share to Finland's Nokia and others for more than a year, due to its weaker line-up of phones, particularly advanced phones with high-speed Web links. Chief Executive Greg Brown promised that about half of Motorola's phones launched in 2009 would have high-speed Web links, compared with about 15% in 2008.
Motorola forecast third-quarter earnings per share from continuing operations in a range of break-even to 2 cents. It said its outlook excludes charges from its operating expense reduction initiatives or other items.
Motorola said sales in its mobile devices division would fall slightly in the third quarter versus the second quarter but that the division's profit would improve. The unit posted an operating loss of $346 million on revenue that fell 22 percent to $3.3 billion in the second quarter.
