Motorola plans January spinoff of mobile-phone unit

Motorola Inc., the U.S. maker of mobile phones and two-way radios, is targeting January for the spinoff of its handset unit and the split of the company in two.

Co-Chief Executive Officer Greg Brown gave the timeframe at a meeting with analysts in New York today. He had previously only said the split would occur in the first quarter.

Motorola reported a sales increase for the first time in almost four years last quarter, smoothing the way for a spinoff of its handset and set-top-box businesses as a new company. That will leave Brown focusing on running an entity called Motorola Solutions made up of the company's remaining businesses, which make bar-code scanners, walkie-talkies and other emergency- communication equipment.

Motorola, based in Schaumburg, rose 16 cents, or 2 percent, to $8.15 at 9:35 a.m. on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares had added 3 percent this year before today.

Co-CEO Sanjay Jha runs the phone and set-top-box businesses, which will be known as Motorola Mobility once spun off. After the separation, Motorola Solutions will be able to put money it had been channeling into the phone unit into rest of the business, Brown said in an interview last month. He left open the possibility that his company will pursue acquisitions after the spinoff.

The radio and bar-code-scanner business reported a 9 percent increase in sales last quarter to $1.9 billion and a 5.9 percent gain in operating profit to $321 million. That helped lift the company's sales by about 6 percent to $5.8 billion, the first year-over-year revenue increase since the fourth quarter of 2006.