Motorola's new scanner expected to drive sales

Motorola Inc., the world's biggest maker of handheld bar-code scanners, expanded its lineup with a device that lets shop assistants check inventories and call other workers in the building.

The CA50 device, announced in a statement Monday, may lift revenue as mobile phone sales slump. Motorola gained the scanner business through the $3.9 billion purchase of Symbol Technologies Inc. last year and is looking for new sources of revenue after losing handset orders to Samsung Electronics Co.

The company also said it won an order from Royal Ahold NV's Stop & Shop supermarkets in New England for its MC17 device, which lets shoppers at about 100 stores scan items as they are placed in the cart, making check-out faster. It didn't give a value for the order.

The division making bar-code scanners and two-way radios accounted for 23 percent of Schaumburg-based Motorola's sales in the third quarter and was the company's fastest-growing unit.

Motorola fell 3 cents to $14.61 Monday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 19 percent in the past year.