This photo provided by Motorola shows Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices,seen here in September 2009. Motorola reported a small quarterly net profit on Thursday, a day after unveiling a Google-powered smartphone seen as key to turning around the flagging fortunes of the US handset maker.

Motorola reported a small quarterly net profit Thursday, a day after unveiling the second in a line of Google-powered smartphones seen as key to turning around the fortunes of the US handset maker.

The Schaumburg, Illinois-based company posted a net profit of 12 million dollars, or one cent per share, in the third quarter compared with a net loss of 397 million dollars in the same period a year ago.

Revenue continued to slide, however, falling 27 percent in the quarter to 5.45 billion dollars.

Revenue in the struggling Mobile Devices division declined 46 percent to 1.7 billion dollars.

Mobile Devices managed to narrow its operating loss however to 183 million dollars from 840 million dollars in the same three months last year and 253 million dollars in the previous quarter.

Motorola shipped 13.6 million handsets in the third quarter as its share of the mobile phone market fell below five percent to 4.7 percent.

Revenue for the Home and Networks Mobility segment, which includes digital entertainment devices and other products, fell 15 percent to two billion dollars. Revenue for Enterprise Mobility Solutions fell 13 percent to 1.8 billion dollars.

Motorola forecast fourth-quarter earnings of seven to nine cents per share, better than the six cents per share expected by Wall Street analysts.

The better-than-expected earnings and the optimistic outlook helped send Motorola's share price 10.93 percent higher to 8.83 dollars in early trading on Wall Street.

Motorola's results, which were boosted in part by aggressive cost-cutting measures, came a day after the company unveiled a new smartphone with Verizon Wireless called the Droid.

Google's new software platform for mobile phones entitled 'Android' in its prototype form is displayed in 2008. Motorola's new Droid, which will cost 200 dollars and is being touted as a challenger to Apple's iPhone, is powered by Android 2.0 software, Google's next-generation mobile phone operating system.

The Droid, which will cost 200 dollars and is being touted as a challenger to Apple's iPhone, is powered by Android 2.0 software, Google's next-generation mobile phone operating system.

The Droid notably includes a new GPS navigation system from Google that has many of the features of a traditional standalone GPS navigation device such as 3D map views and turn-by-turn voice guidance.

Motorola released another Android-powered smartphone, the Cliq, in September.

The Cliq is heavily geared toward social networking and younger users with features built around sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola's co-chief executive who was brought in last year to turn around the struggling mobile phone division, underlined the importance of the new smartphones for the company.

"The introductions of our new products powered by Android are important milestones as we begin to address the mobilization of the Internet and the growing demand for modern smartphones," said Jha, a former Qualcomm executive.

"Next year, we will continue to expand our smartphone portfolio and deliver improved financial results," said Jha, chief executive of Mobile Devices.

Motorola enjoyed success with its popular Razr phone launched in 2005 but has been losing ground since to Apple and Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, as well as to other major cell phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Motorola also announced on Thursday that Edward Fitzpatrick, its acting chief financial officer, had been named permanent CFO.

© 2009 AFP