Motorola Splits In Two, Both Divisions Confident

Sparked by a dramatic dip in cellular handset sales and followed by two years of planning, today Motorola split into two publicly-traded companies, with public safety radio under the Motorola Solutions Inc. brand that also includes consoles, CAD software, 911 equipment, pagers, barcode scanners and cellular network gear. The other company, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., will handle smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes. Motorola had a 22 percent share of the cellular handset market in 2006 and was considered a market leader with a bright future. However, their market share quickly declined as Apple and other companies introduced smartphones, and Motorola’s handset designs fell behind. The company proposed splitting off the cellular assets so they wouldn’t drag down the stock value of the other divisions of the company. Now, analysts estimate Motorola’s smartphone share at five percent, and expect it will continue to decline as H-P, Microsoft and others enter the market, and Nokia and RIM upgrade their product lines. On the first day of trading, executives of the two separate companies expressed optimism about their respective products. Read about the first day here.