Motorola monitoring Google's China situation

Motorola Inc., rebuilding its mobile-phone business around Google Inc.'s Android software, said it is monitoring information about the attacks targeting Google e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Such attacks are sophisticated and increasingly common, Schaumburg-based Motorola said in an e-mailed statement today. The company said it is committed to the Android operating system and expects the software's "growth trajectory" to continue in 2010 and beyond.

Motorola is counting on Android to revive sales and challenge Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry smartphones. The company, whose revenue has dropped for more than two years, said China is a "critical" market and that it plans to keep selling its products in the country.

China is the world's largest mobile-phone market with more than 700 million users, according to government data. Mobile- phone makers sold 59.2 million handsets in the country in the third quarter, up 26 percent from a year earlier, according to research firm Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. Nokia Oyj is the market leader, and Motorola ranked outside the top five.

Google said yesterday it will end self-censorship of its China search engine and may quit the world's largest Internet market after the attacks. The assaults on Google and at least 20 other companies, as well as limits on free speech, led to the decision, the Mountain View, California-based company said.

Motorola last week introduced the Backflip, its latest Android phone, after releasing the Droid handset in November. The company has also unveiled two Android devices for China.

Motorola rose 20 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $7.60 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Google fell $3.39 to $587.09 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.