CHICAGO, July 20 (AFP) - Motorola on Tuesday posted a 203 million-dollar second-quarter loss, stemming mostly from spinning off its chip unit last week.
Reporting after the bell, the technology giant said it had had a strong quarter, but that expenses relating to the initial public offering of Freescale Semiconductor Inc. had pushed it into the red.
Factoring in charges of 939 million dollars related to the IPO, among other one-off items, the company lost 203 million dollars or nine cents per share.
In the same quarter a year ago, the company posted a profit of 119 million dollars, or five cents a share.
Excluding one-time items, Motorola had pre-tax earnings of 845 million dollars in the latest quarter on revenues of 8.7 billion dollars, which were up six-fold versus the second-quarter of 2003.
"We are very happy to report that the strong sales and pre-tax earnings growth with which we started 2004 has continued in the second quarter," said Motorola chairman and chief executive officer Ed Zander.
"Our earnings would also have reflected very strong growth except for the requirement ... that in accordance with (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), a non-cash charge was taken to establish a deferred tax asset valuation reserve stemming from the initial public offering of stock in our semiconductor segment, now known as Freescale Semiconductor, Inc."