Motorola's battered stock soared 10.3 percent Friday after the company signaled it may get out of its trademark mobile phone business. As the world's No. 3 mobile phone maker, Motorola said it is also exploring strategic alternatives including a possible separation of its mobile devices business from other units.
The company said it was looking at a "structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its mobile devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value."
Analysts said Motorola could get at least $5 billion for the troubled unit. But they cautioned that a sale, spinoff or joint venture won't alter the unit's severe challenges and said the lack of promising products in the pipeline may be a deterrent to any buyer.
Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB surfaced Friday as tentatively interested in Motorola's mobile phone unit.
"As professional business leaders we look at everything, but we would take a very cautious view on such a thing because we do believe you are better off doing it on your own," Carl-Henric Svanberg, the Swedish company's chief executive, told analysts in response to a question on a conference call.
Other companies speculated as potential buyers range from rival handset makers to Dell Inc. and even Google Inc., although Morningstar analyst Jordan Zounis called chances of those two U.S. companies getting involved "remote."
The lack of a solid middle level phone is one reason why I didn't buy a Motorola. All I wanted was a nonRAZR phone with a camera, memory card slot, mp3 player. The e815 was it, and it was so buggy and with such a bad charger, that it couldn't even finish my contract.
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