iTunes phone coming

Motorola on Wednesday night confirmed plans to launch the much-anticipated that will play digital music downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store, according to The Financial Times. During the company's quarterly conference call, Motorola's CEO said that the iTunes product would be coming out in the next few months, despite ongoing speculation that Motorola might delay the launch of its iTunes phone "because of lack of enthusiasm among US network operators." Hoping to continue in the footsteps of its popular Razr phone, Motorola said it hopes to boost marketshare and profit margins by introducing new phones, such as the Pebl, a curved flip phone, and the Slivr, a thin handset with a face that slides to a keypad a screen.

Motorola said it shipped 28.7 million mobile phones, a 13 percent from the year-ago quarter and lifted its market share to about 17.1 percent. Overall its financials were up 48 percent from the year-ago quarter (excluding the recently spun-off Freescale semiconductor business). Motorola reported first-quarter earnings of $692 million (28 cents per a share), up from $609 million (19 cents per share) in the year-ago quarter--including its semiconductor business.

by MacNN Staff