Jha to head Motorola’s handset business
Motorola hired Qualcomm’s Sanjay Jha to oversee the money-losing mobile-phone business after sales plunged for six straight quarters.
By Bloomberg |
NEW YORK: Motorola, preparing to break the company in two, hired Qualcomm���s Sanjay Jha to oversee the money-losing mobile-phone business after sales plunged for six straight quarters. The stock rose as much as 10% after Motorola said on Monday that Jha, Qualcomm���s former operations chief, will become co-chief executive officer alongside Greg Brown. Jha, 45, will oversee the mobile devices division, which accounts for about 40% of revenue.
The unit has lost more than $1.9 billion since the start of last year as customers fled to competitors such as Apple���s iPhone, pushing Motorola to third place in global mobile-phone sales. Jha, who joined Qualcomm in 1994, helped that company supplant Texas Instruments as the world���s biggest maker of chips for mobile phones last year.
���They needed someone high profile with engineering talent, and certainly this guy fits the bill,��� said Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt in Nashville, Tennessee. ���The only downside is that he doesn���t necessarily have any consumer products expertise.��� He rates Motorola ���market perform��� and doesn���t own any shares.
Brown, 47, will become CEO of the company���s profitable and faster-growing broadband business, which makes cable-television set-top boxes and wireless networking equipment. He announced plans to split the phone unit from the rest of the company this year and last week said the division will occur in the third quarter of 2009.
Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, climbed 91 cents to $9.72 at 9:33 am in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock had dropped 45% this year before Monday. Qualcomm fell $1.32 to $54.15 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.
Len Lauer, 51, will replace Jha as operations chief, Qualcomm said on Monday in a separate statement. Before his promotion, Lauer was an executive vice president at Qualcomm, overseeing the services business. He also worked at Sprint Nextel and International Business Machines before joining the chipmaker.
The unit has lost more than $1.9 billion since the start of last year as customers fled to competitors such as Apple���s iPhone, pushing Motorola to third place in global mobile-phone sales. Jha, who joined Qualcomm in 1994, helped that company supplant Texas Instruments as the world���s biggest maker of chips for mobile phones last year.
���They needed someone high profile with engineering talent, and certainly this guy fits the bill,��� said Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt in Nashville, Tennessee. ���The only downside is that he doesn���t necessarily have any consumer products expertise.��� He rates Motorola ���market perform��� and doesn���t own any shares.
Brown, 47, will become CEO of the company���s profitable and faster-growing broadband business, which makes cable-television set-top boxes and wireless networking equipment. He announced plans to split the phone unit from the rest of the company this year and last week said the division will occur in the third quarter of 2009.
Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, climbed 91 cents to $9.72 at 9:33 am in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock had dropped 45% this year before Monday. Qualcomm fell $1.32 to $54.15 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.
Len Lauer, 51, will replace Jha as operations chief, Qualcomm said on Monday in a separate statement. Before his promotion, Lauer was an executive vice president at Qualcomm, overseeing the services business. He also worked at Sprint Nextel and International Business Machines before joining the chipmaker.
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At San Diego-based Qualcomm, Jha won sales from Texas Instruments as customers used more of its semiconductors for new devices that surf the Web and download videos. Motorola last week said it aims to introduce more of such products this year and next, including ones with touch screens.Download
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