Motorola reports record quarterly sales

Motorola had record sales for the third quarter, coming in at $10.6 billion. The also moved plenty of handsets: in fact a record number of them. Handset shipments were 53.7 million units, up 39 percent versus the year-ago quarter. So much for the good news. The bad news is that profits were down 45%.

What could explain this phenomena? Easy, Razrs are still selling like hotcakes, but Motorola has been offering more incentives to move units. What does Motorola see as being needed for the future? Like all current mobile phone makers, they're most concerned with the possibilities offered by G4 mobile networks.

Expect Motorola to announce more innovative handset designs in the coming months. They're working more and more on "virtual handsets" that break free from the constraints of Qwerty.