Motorola predicts modest Q4 adjusted profitability

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. predicted it was modestly profitable excluding one-time items in the fourth quarter on sales of about $3.4 billion, saying mobile-device competition increased along with its legal costs.

The preliminary results from the period estimated shipments of about 10.5 million mobile devices, of which approximately 5.3 million were smartphones, the company said.

A year earlier, Motorola Mobility reported a profit of $80 million, or 27 cents a share, including an intellectual property settlement and stock-based compensation. Without the items, earnings were a 37 cents a share, a penny better than expected.

Revenue was $3.43 billion then, and the company had 4.9 million smartphone shipments. Motorola Mobility is still embroiled in several patent suits. Most recently, an administrative law judge has ruled in favor of Motorola on six of seven Microsoft Corp. patents but found Motorola violated one.

Google Inc., which makes the Android operating system for mobile devices, is in the process of closing its acquisition of Motorola Mobility for roughly $12.5 billion.

Its largest acquisition ever, the Motorola deal provides Google with a trove of patents and closes the divide between software and hardware companies.

Motorola Mobility shares were down 16 cents at $38.30 in after-hours trade.Viettel to invest $400m in Mozambique, Peru Vietnam's military-run Viettel Group plans to invest $400 million over the next 10 years in projects to build mobile telecommunication networks in Mozambique and Peru, state media reported Monday citing company figures.

Viettel is also seeking to participate in a $273.3 million telecommunication network project in Mali, reported the Vietnam Investment Review, which is published by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Viettel was set up in 2004 and started to invest overseas in 2009; it has operations in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Haiti and Bangladesh, Vietnam Investment Review reported. Also on Monday, the Saigon Dau Tu Tai Chinh newspaper reported that Viettel posted a pretax profit of VND20 trillion ($952 million) in 2011, an increase of 23% from a year earlier, on revenue of VND117 trillion, up 28%. Its overseas operations made a net profit of $70 million in 2011, the newspaper reported without providing a comparative figure.