Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said his company plans to release fewer new models this year, in an effort to concentrate its marketing dollars.

“A lot of products that are roughly the same doesn’t drive the market to a new place,” Jha said on Tuesday in a roundtable meeting with reporters. Of course, it is an interesting statement from a company that released the Droid Bionic and Droid Razr in rapid succession, followed on Monday by the Droid Razr Maxx — a version of the Droid Razr with a bigger battery.

Jha noted that it was a delay in the Bionic that caused that product’s debut to be so close in timing to the Razr.

Asked whether he thinks Motorola would be better off if others also slowed their launches or if he prefers them to continue their current pace, Jha demurred.

“I made this decision independent of what the others will do,” he said. “We’re doing what we think is the right thing.”

Jha also said the company plans to pursue fewer new ideas in an effort to make more things stick.

The shift comes at a key time for Motorola, which is in the process of trying to sell itself to Google. The company also warned last week that fourth-quarter sales would come in below what most analysts had been expecting.

Last year the company introduced the notion of a lap dock in which phones could be plugged into a bigger screen and keyboard to perform many of the same tasks as a laptop.

Jha conceded that the product hasn’t been the commercial success it hoped nor did customers find it delivered the performance they were looking for.

However, Jha said that the company is making further refinements and still believes in the concept for the future.

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t turns out, he could make more money from selling the unit, now a separate company known as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. Google Inc. agreed Monday to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Mr. Jha, Motorola Mobility’s CEO, could gain more than $62 million if he leaves Google Inc. in the next two years, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal and the Hay Group, a management-consulting firm.

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Speaking at the Oppenheimer Technology and Communications Conference, Motorola Mobility Chairman and CEO Sanjay Jha said the company doesn’t worry much about the IP battles currently being fought in the wireless industry. On the contrary, it looks forward to using its patent arsenal to differentiate itself from other Android handset makers.

“We have a very large IP portfolio, and I think in the long term, as things settle down, you will see a meaningful difference in positions of many different Android players — both in terms of avoidance of royalties, as well as collecting them,” Jha said. “And that will make a big difference to people who have very strong IP positions.”

This isn’t the first time Jha has talked up Motorola’s patent portfolio. He also emphasized it during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, saying Motorola’s more than 17,000 patents are becoming “increasingly important” as new companies enter the mobile space.

“There are really a few areas where our patent portfolio is extremely strong,” Jha said at the time. “First, 2G/3G essentials, I think that is very well understood by the [Wall] street and the industry, and we have monetized that asset over the last few years very well. Probably a little less well known is our strength in patent portfolio in non-essential patents, which are capabilities that are important to have in delivering competitive products in the marketplace. Third, I think is in our video coding/de-coding and security, and fourth, probably least understood and most underestimated , is our strength in our 4G LTE patent portfolio. As I look at these patent portfolios, I feel very good that we will be able to go forward and find ways to create enhanced shareholder value.”

Could this mean that the company is positioning itself to collect patent royalties? Certainly sounds that way.

In providing guidance along with its quarterly results, Motorola said it expects tablet sales to drop in the current quarter as its Xoom faces greater competition from a range of other tablets running Google’s Honeycomb operating system and as it prepares new products. Average selling prices have also dropped, in part as the company has cut prices.

On the plus side, the company said that a growing number of applications are starting to be made available for Android tablets. A mail-in update allowing Verizon Xoom customers to upgrade their device to support 4G LTE, originally due by June, is now slated for September.

Motorola said it expects total smartphone and tablet sales combined to be somewhere around 21 million to 23 million for the full year, with CEO Sanjay Jha saying that it has plans to offer a number of new smartphones in time for the back-to-school shopping season as well as two new LTE-ready tablets later this year.

Jha noted that the company had the benefit of being first to market among Android tablets with the Xoom, but that also posed some challenges.

“You have less time to cost optimize,” Jha said. The new tablets, he said, are designed to be more competitive on costs, adding later that carriers have reacted favorably to the forthcoming products and said that the company should be poised to do better in the fourth quarter.

The company said its delayed Droid Bionic — a dual-core 4G LTE phone — should be in stores in September with another LTE phone also due out before the end of the year.

“It’s my expectation that LTE will be a strong focus for carriers in the fourth quarter,” Jha said, saying that he believes Motorola will have a good position, though he declined to forecast how big that market will be.

Speaking on the company’s conference call with analysts, Jha also commented on the company’s patent portfolio in the wake of investor Carl Icahn suggesting the company consider selling off some of its patents. Noting the company has more than 17,000 patents granted and over 7,000 patents pending, Jha said the company is always reviewing its options. With new companies entering the mobile space, he said, “our patent portfolio in increasingly important.”

Even when pressed by analysts, though, Jha didn’t offer much in the way of specifics. “We will do all that we can to create and enhance our shareholder value using all of the assets we have at our disposal,” he said.

Sanjay Jha said in an interview the mobile handset maker has been able to work with local partners to deliver functions on its phones like email and maps, which have enabled continued rapid sales. The lack of Google features may be a more significant problem for the company’s Xoom tablets, however, he said, as those features are central to the user experience in other markets.

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The star of the show is the Photon 4G, which packs a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 4.3-inch screen, the Gingerbread version of Android and an eight megapixel camera, as well as the ability to plug into a laptop dock, a la the Motorola Atrix.

The other device shown Thursday was the Motorola Triumph, the first Motorola device exclusive to Sprint’s Virgin Mobile prepaid brand. The thin 4.1-inch touchscreen device has HDMI output and the ability to capture 720p video.

Sprint and Motorola said the devices would be available this summer, but didn’t announce pricing or exact availability.

Motorola has been a longtime partner for Sprint’s Nextel brand, but its Android smartphones have been more closely tied with Verizon, where Motorola has powered many of that carrier’s Droid devices. To underscore the partnership, Thursday’s announcement featured Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha along with Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse.

The company’s per-share loss was 27 cents, compared with a 72 cent per-share loss a year earlier as revenue rose to $3 billion.

In a statement, CEO Sanjay Jha touted the release of the Xoom tablet and Atrix smartphone as highlights for the company’s first quarter as an independent company. “With a well-recognized brand, a strong balance sheet and industry-leading intellectual property, we have the right assets to deliver an exciting pipeline of products, continue to grow our business and further improve our financial results.”

Having bet its future on Android, though, Motorola Mobility now faces the challenge of standing out in an increasingly crowded field that includes not only heavyweights like HTC, Samsung and LG, but also challengers such as China’s Huawei. Analysts have been particularly concerned that Xoom sales may have been weak, despite Motorola’s status as being the first out of the gate with a Honeycomb-based tablet.

Jha had warned this quarter could be particularly tough as Verizon began shipping an iPhone, potentially shifting attention away from other products, such as Motorola-built Droid models.

For the coming quarter, the company forecasts it will either break even or post a modest profit of up to 12 cents per share, before charges.

And in what has been described as the worst kept secret in the tech world, he seemed to confirm the existence of Google’s much talked about music service. Mr. Jha, speaking to reporters at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, said a device that was 4G compatible on U.S. carrier Verizon’s network was worth the extra money. A 32GB iPad with 3G currently retails in the U.S. for $729.

“We felt that our ability to deliver 50Mb/s would justify the $799 price point. It is 32GB with 3G and a free upgrade to 4G. Being competitive with iPad is important. We feel that from the hardware and capabilities we deliver we are at least competitive and in a number of ways better [than the iPad].”

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The Motorola Xoom packs a 16-by-10 aspect ratio, a dual-core processor, 1080p playback and Flash support, and will run on Verizon’s network. Initially, the tablet will run on Verizon’s 3G network, but Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said the Xoom that goes on sale in the first quarter of this year will be upgradeable to 4G by the end of the second quarter.

“The software is not completely done,” Jha said, adding that the hardware isn’t either.

Google Android boss Andy Rubin had briefly showed a prototype Motorola tablet at last month’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference and said that Honeycomb was being designed expressly with tablets in mind.

The Xoom, Wi-Fi Samsung Tab and G-Slate are in addition to the Toshiba, Asus and Vizio tablets announced earlier in the week.

Nearly all of these tablets are running some flavor of Android, though a handful of Windows 7 tablets are also being shown in Las Vegas.

However, the scene in Vegas offers a somewhat skewed view of the tablet market. Outside Sin City, the iPad is still the dominant player, while a number of tablet competitors expected soon have opted not to launch here. HP is having an event next month to focus on future webOS devices, while Research In Motion has said it will launch its PlayBook before the end of March.

Motorola also used some of its afternoon event to show off the Motorola Atrix 4G, a smartphone introduced at an AT&T event earlier in the day. It packs a fingerprint reader, a dual-core 1GHz processor, and the ability to dock to an 11-inch screen and keyboard to act as a mini-laptop, with eight hours of battery life.

When docked, the phone can power a full desktop version of Mozilla, including full Flash support, allowing for a PC-like experience all powered by the smartphone. AT&T Senior Vice President Jeff Bradley said it is too soon to say how much the device will cost, but promised the price will be competitive. Although AT&T has the U.S. exclusive on the Atrix, Motorola said it will be offered through Bell Canada and Orange UK.

In addition to the Atrix and Tablet, Motorola announced its first phone to run on faster LTE networks–the dual-core Droid Bionic, which is slated to arrive early in the second quarter on Verizon Wireless. Motorola also introduced the Cliq 2, an update to Motorola’s first Motoblur phone for T-Mobile.

Update 5:45 pm PT: As for timing, I confirmed that the Motorola Xoom is indeed the “lead device” for Honeycomb and will be the first on the market when it ships later this quarter. The LG model is slated to ship “in the coming months,” and other Honeycomb tablets will follow.

Google isn’t sharing a lot of new details on Honeycomb, but Rubin did make a short blog post and upload this YouTube video, which touts Google Talk video chatting, a specially designed YouTube App and access to Google Books.

“Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets that are richer and more interactive,” Rubin said in the blog post. “We’ve also made some powerful upgrades to the web browser, including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill, syncing with your Google Chrome bookmarks, and incognito mode for private browsing.”

.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, AT&T executive Ralph de la Vega said that the company plans to release 20 4G devices this year both for the LTE network and for its current HSPA+ network.

De La Vega said just after that that the company will have devices on the Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 operating systems. (Update: 12:12 p.m.: While some in the audience, including Mobilized, heard an implication that there would be a 4G iPhone, an AT&T representative said De La Vega was only saying that the iPhone would be part of AT&T’s smartphone lineup and not suggesting a 4G version.)

Among the devices that will be on AT&T’s HSPA+ network is the Motorola Atrix 4G, a dual-core-powered Android phone from Motorola. The phone, which also packs 1GB of RAM, was launched by Sanjay Jha, CEO of newly split-off Motorola Mobility. one of the more interesting features is the phone’s optional “lap dock,” which allows the phone to power a small laptop capable of running a desktop version of the Firefox browser, among other programs.

AT&T will also have a new phone from HTC that will include a new version of the company’s Sense user interface and also connect to a new HTCSense.com Web portal.

“HTCSense.com makes your smartphone even smarter,” HTC CEO Peter Chou said, demonstrating a feature that lets you ring your phone when it is lost in the house or send a lost-and-found message to appear on a phone you left in a cab.

By building both HSPA+ and LTE networks, De la Vega said that the company will offer more speed and flexibility.

“More importantly, we will deliver an experience our competitors will not be able to match,” De la Vega said.

The split has been a long time in the making. Owners of the old Motorola got one share of Motorola Mobility for each eight shares they owned and the remaining company then underwent a one-for-seven reverse stock split. The two halves had been trading separately on a “when issued” basis for a while now.

Both of the company’s leaders praised the move and promised that only good things will come of it.

“After more than two years of planning, today we begin operating as a financially strong, independent company trading on the New York Stock Exchange,” Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said in a statement, touting the company’s smartphone and video business.

Motorola Solutions’ CEO Greg Brown sounded an equally optimistic note.

“With a purpose-driven brand and a strong balance sheet, we are very well positioned for the future,” Brown said.

For now, the two companies have joint custody of the name and logo. Motorola has also split its Web site in two (see below) with options pointing to each of the now separate Motorolas. Or would that be Motorolae, or perhaps Motoroli?

Speaking at an investor conference on Wednesday, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha made his best case for the company and its opportunities in both smartphones and tablets. Motorola also plans to have 4G phones in the market early next year, Jha said, without giving specifics. But he also acknowledged the company is headed for some serious turbulence.

The first quarter is normally down from the prior quarter, but this year’s first quarter is shaping up to be a lot worse, with the cellphone unit expected to post a loss.

“We have an additional challenge potentially with Verizon,” Jha said, speaking in code so as not to use the iWord. “There is a competitive dynamic developing.”

Mobilized isn’t afraid to say the phone that must not be named. He’s talking about a Verizon iPhone.

Jha talked a lot about the company’s efforts to diversify–selling more phones to carriers other than Verizon, increasing sales in Latin America and China, and adding tablets. Jha said the company will sell both 7-inch and 10-inch tablets.

However, clearly not everyone was impressed. As noted by Barron’s, Nomura Securities launched coverage of Motorola stock on Thursday with a “reduce” rating, saying that a CDMA iPhone could ultimately push Motorola into the mid-tier of the smartphone battle, where it will face more competition from Asian makers, such as Samsung.

And the timing could hardly be worse for Motorola, which is spinning off the cellphone unit, a process that is slated to be completed on Jan. 4.

Longer-term, Motorola faces the challenge of using an operating system, Android, that is used widely in the industry, while spending more than rivals on research and other development costs.

One conference attendee suggested HTC’s research costs are a third of what Motorola spends. Jha said that there is a difference in the two companies’ cost structures, but rejected the idea that it was that pronounced.

“I think we are investing more in software differentiation,” he said. “I think we will make that investment matter.”

There’s also the fact that the phone businesss is so hit driven. That’s something the company learned on the positive side with the RAZR way back when, and on the negative side in the drought that followed the release of that slim flip phone.

Although the competition among Android devices is fierce, Jha said he doesn’t regret the company’s bet back in 2008 to focus so much of its resources on that operating system.

“There are obviously tradeoffs in every decision,” Jha said. “But on balance it’s been a very, very good decision for us.”

Jha said he knows that in order for Motorola to produce the kind of profit margins it wants long-term, it will have to be able to differentiate its software. Hardware differentiation, he said, gives only a six-month advantage versus doing something unique in software.

“I don’t think I can get to a gorilla position from where I am in one easy sweep, but I think it is possible to create differentiation in this business,” Jha said.

Motorola filed the details Tuesday afternoon on its plan to split itself in two. The spinoff of the cellphone unit will take place Jan. 4, with holders getting one share of the mobile unit, known as Motorola Mobility, for every eight shares of Motorola they own. The remaining Motorola company will then have a one-for-seven reverse stock split, which would have the effect of boosting the per-share price (but not the inherent value) of the suddenly smaller company.

The split will be made before the market opens on Jan. 4 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 21.

“Today’s announcement marks another important milestone toward the upcoming separation that is expected to benefit Motorola, its stockholders, as well as each company’s respective customers and employees,” Motorola’s co-CEOs Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha said in a statement. “We look forward to taking advantage of the opportunities before us as we begin the new year as two independent, publicly traded companies.”

Motorola Mobility will trade under the ticker symbol MMI, while the remaining Motorola, known as Motorola Solutions, will use the ticker symbol MSI.

Whether all this splitting and name changing will boost the company’s value remains to be seen.

Posting third-quarter financials this morning, the company reported growth in sales and profit for the period on strong demand for its Android smartphones. Earnings were $109 million, or 5 cents per share, on revenue of $5.8 billion. On an adjusted basis, they were 17 cents per share compared with the Street’s expectation of 11 cents.

In the quarter, Motorola shipped 3.8 million smartphones–enough for its Mobile Devices division to show an operating profit for the first time in over three and a half years. Great news for Motorola, which plans to divide itself into two independent companies early next year–one to handle its mobile devices and home businesses, and the other to handle enterprise mobility.

The comments by Motorola (MOT) co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha were his company’s first detailed remarks on the lawsuits filed by Microsoft at the International Trade Commission and federal court in Seattle.

The suits were viewed as an attempt to slow the explosive growth of Google Inc.’s (GOOG) competing mobile operating system, Android, which Motorola uses exclusively on its smartphones.

In an interview Tuesday at a technology conference in San Francisco, Mr. Jha said he is willing to look at using Microsoft’s operating system if the software company gets it right.

“I am open to finding ways to work with Microsoft,” Mr. Jha said. “But it has to be a compelling offering.”

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A respectable showing and one that has co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha predicting a return to sales growth in the third quarter, with profitability in the fourth quarter. “Demand is outstripping supply,” he said of the company’s new Droid X Android smartphone during a conference call with analysts this morning. “We have momentum going into the third quarter and fourth quarter.”

For its second quarter, Motorola (MOT) reported a profit of nine cents a share excluding costs. That was a penny ahead of expectations and three cents per share better than the profit the company posted in the year-ago quarter. Revenue was $5.41 billion, above the consensus estimate of $5.19 billion, but down slightly from the $5.497 billion the company made during the same period a year ago.

What an astonishing coincidence.

Motorola and Verizon Wireless have set a date for the debut of their next-generation Droid device: Wednesday, June 23, one day prior to the street date for release of Apple’s iPhone 4. Presiding over the launch: Verizon Wireless marketing chief John Stratton, Google (GOOG) VP of engineering Andy Rubin, Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha, and–more interestingly–Adobe (ADBE) CEO Shantanu “Thoughts on Flash” Narayen (see invitation above; click to enlarge).

A bold move. But a potentially foolish one as well. If this year’s iPhone launch week is anything like those of years past, Apple (AAPL) will be sucking so much air out of the news cycle there may be little left for Verizon (VZ) and Motorola (MOT), even if this latest Droid is as promising as it sounds.

“(Droid) sales are going extremely well,” Jha said today. “If I could build more I’d sell more.” Evidently, Motorola (MOT) is facing the same component shortages these days that delayed HTC’s Droid Incredible.

One other point worth noting here in the aftermath of Apple’s iPhone 4 and FaceTime video-calling announcements earlier this week: Jha said Motorola plans to launch two to four smartphones that support mobile videoconferencing before the end of the year, though he has “never been a great believer” in the feature.

Wonder if the new devices will support Apple’s (AAPL) FaceTime standard.

The new phones are a key test for Motorola co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha, who needs to demonstrate he can deliver a string of winners and reverse losses as he tries to prove his mobile devices division can be a stand-alone business.

Verizon Wireless, which plans to add two Motorola smartphones in July, spent $100 million marketing the original Droid, helping to boost Motorola’s sales in the first quarter.

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“Q: So if this is not the GPhone, when will we see the GPhone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a GPhone. It starts a whole wave of innovation…

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships…the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: …GPhone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the GPhone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products….If there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a Nov. 2007 conference call on Android

During an Android demo in April 2008, Steve Horowitz, one of the original engineers working on Google’s Android platform, said “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt when the operating system was announced. Now, not two years later, Google is telling us something different: There is a GPhone and its name is Nexus One.

At an event at Google’s (GOOG) Mountain View, Calif., headquarters this morning, a handful of company execs discussed the genesis of the Nexus One, tracing its evolution from the G1–the first Android phone–to the Verizon (VZ) Droid. In the short time since Android was launched, the number of devices running it has grown to 20, offered by 59 carriers in 48 countries.

“To help Android to adapt to the needs of users like you and me, our engineering department sometimes works with partners to speed innovation around Android,” Mario Queiroz, VP of Product Management, said during opening remarks. “But we want to do more. So we asked ourselves, ‘What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market that will help us better showcase some of the technology we’ve developed?’”

The result: Nexus One. “The dictionary definition of Nexus One is a point of convergence. Its that point at which Web meets phone,” Queiroz explains. “The Nexus One belongs in an emerging category of devices we call superphones.”

Eric Tseng, a senior Google product manager, takes the stage to walk through Nexus One’s features, which we’re now all pretty familiar with: 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, five-megapixel camera with LED flash, a trackball with a multicolor notification LED, light and proximity sensors that save power.

The device is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs about 130 grams, which Tseng notes is no heavier than a keychain-size Swiss Army knife. Nexus One runs on Android 2.1, a.k.a. “Eclair.” Oh, it also offers “support” for personalization–engrave your name or that of a loved one on the back.

That’s the baseline offering, but there are other enhancements. Among them: Five home-screen panels that allow users to add more widgets, like Google’s GPS weather widget, which is evidently very exciting and “Googley.”

Another enhancement: “Living wallpapers,” dynamic, animated home-screen images–leaves falling on water, for example; tap the screen and the water ripples. Neat feature, but not exactly a killer app.

Also onboard: A photo-gallery app developed with the folks at Cool Iris and tricked out with some pretty slick 3-D viewing. Tip the phone and the photos recede, etc.

Finally, Google has developed some significant voice enhancements. Evidently, the company has voice-enabled all text fields on the device. “Now, we can speak our tweets and Facebook status updates,” says Tseng.

All in all, an impressive device. Be sure to read Walt Mossberg’s review for a more in-depth look at Nexus One.

So how do you get your hands on a Google superphone? Through a “Google-hosted Web Store,” says Queiroz. You can buy a phone with service from a carrier partner, or without service.

A Nexus One without service goes for $529. For $179, you can buy it from T-Mobile with service. In the spring, you’ll be able to buy it from–surprise!–Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD).

Transactions will be handled by Google Checkout, so if you’re a Google Account holder, purchasing the device should be fairly simple.

One last point worth noting here: Queiroz stresses that the Nexus One is the first of a number of products developed via this new collaborative process with partners. “Our plan is to add more carriers and more devices in the future,” he says.

Ah. As Eric Schmidt said back in 2007, “Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q&A:

• Nexus Ones ordered from T-Mobile ship today.
• Google is the merchant of record. When you buy a Nexus One, you buy it from Google.
• Why was it necessary for Google to design the Nexus One? Google didn’t really design the phone. “HTC did, Google is just merchandising it.”
• Android 2.1 will be available for Droid and other Android devices soon.
• Google’s Web Store is “simply another distribution channel.” It is not designed to replace or disintermediate carriers or mobile phone retailers.
• Queiroz on the Google Web Store program: “If users are interested in a different form factor and our software supports it, we’ll pursue it. We’re going to look at different options of devices that can be added to the program. We will consider other mobile phones.”
• Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering: “Today’s superphone is tomorrow’s smartphone.”
• Question from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land: “Where is the ad-supported mobile phone? Where’s the revolution?” Sadly, Rubin dodges. Gotta take a first step before you can change the world…blah lah blah.
• How do superphones differ from smartphones? Rubin: “It’s just the evolution of the platform….It’s the greater memory, the faster processors….The Nexus One is as powerful as your laptop was four years ago.”
• Question for Motorola’s (MOT) Sanjay Jha: Is Motorola worried that Nexus One will cannibalize Droid sales? Jha says no, and his presence here today supports that. Still it’s tough to believe him. Maybe Motorola and Google are already working on Nexus Two.

Not the prettiest of quarters, but that penny-a-share profit beat the consensus estimates of analysts, who had expected the company to simply break even.

“We delivered on our commitment to improve the financial performance of Mobile Devices and to commercially launch two smartphones in time for the fourth-quarter holiday season,” Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Mobile Devices, said in a statement.

“The introductions of our new products powered by Android,” Jha continued, “are important milestones as we begin to address the mobilization of the Internet and the growing demand for modern smartphones. Next year, we will continue to expand our smartphone portfolio and deliver improved financial results.”

Glad those layoffs are paying off for someone.

Which is not to say that Motorola’s suffering is over. Sales at the company’s struggling wireless division dropped a precipitous 46 percent to $1.7 billion. Its estimated global market share is now 4.7 percent, compared with 8.4 percent it claimed in 2008. An ugly decline indeed.

That said, with some strong new Android handsets in the pipeline, things are beginning to look up for Motorola (MOT). At $8.44, company shares are trading up six percent this morning.