By Wailin Wong |
Motorola Inc. is no longer one of the top five mobile phone makers
worldwide, according to a new ranking by research firm IDC.

The Schaumburg-based technology company has been in the top five since
IDC began its quarterly reports in 2004, and was in the No. 2 spot that
year. But Motorola’s well-documented woes of recent years — failing to
follow up the Razr with more hit products, and missing out on the
industry’s initial shift into sophisticated, Web-connected devices –
caused the company to slip in the rankings. Research In Motion, the
maker of the BlackBerry, replaced Motorola in the list for the first
quarter of 2010, according to IDC.

IDC noted that no company has dropped from the top five since the second quarter of 2005, when Sony Ericsson supplanted BenQ Siemens.

Worldwide mobile phone shipments totaled 294.9 million units in the first quarter, up 22 percent from the same period last year. The growing popularity of smartphones and a general recovery in mobile devices “helped the market avoid a repeat of (first quarter 2009), when the market declined 16.6 percent in the midst of the global economic recession,” IDC said in a statement.

Nokia led the quarterly rankings with a 36.6 percent market share, followed by Samsung, LG Electronics, RIM and Sony Ericsson.

A separate report released today by Strategy Analytics, another research firm, showed that Nokia was also the leading worldwide smartphone maker in the first quarter, with a 40 percent market share. RIM took the No. 2 spot, followed by Apple.

Motorola co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha has created a turnaround strategy for the company’s mobile phone division that hinges on smartphones running Google’s Android operating software. The focus on building up the nascent smartphone portfolio means that Motorola has ceded some ground in lower-priced feature phones.

The company’s first-quarter earnings, released Thursday, showed that smartphone shipments are gaining momentum but traditional feature phones are slipping. This dynamic should result in greater profits over the long-term, because smartphones sell for higher prices but lower overall volume in the short term.

Jha said Thursday that Motorola expects to ship between 12 million and 14 million smartphones this year. Even if the company hits the high end of that range, shipments will still fall behind the 25.1 million units that Apple shipped in 2009. Still, investors seem encouraged by progress in Jha’s recovery plan. Motorola’s stock rose 3.5 percent on Thursday after the company reported earnings.