Motorola Inc yesterday said its loss for the second quarter was $2.3bn, its largest ever, after recording a restructuring charge of $2.4bn. The company said that sales were down, but added that without the one-off charge, it actually returned to profitability.

For the three months to June 30, the company saw a net loss of $2.3bn, compared to a loss of $759m a year ago, on revenue that was down 11% at $6.7bn. Excluding the restructuring charge, the company reported net income of $48m, better than estimates.

Despite the wow-factor of the GAAP net loss, the second quarter numbers pleased observers, who had not expected a return to profitability excluding items until the third quarter. The Thomson First Call analysts' consensus estimate was for a loss of $0.04 per share, but Motorola reported a profit of $0.02 per share.

Motorola president and COO Edward Breen said: "Not only have we announced the actions that will substantially complete the company's restructuring program but, excluding the impact of special items, we returned to profitability one quarter earlier than previously expected."

© Computerwire.com. All rights reserved.