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Not even the Moto X can stop Motorola from bleeding cash

Image Credit: AT&T

The Moto X may be a great phone, but it’s not helping Motorola turn a profit.

Google reported its third quarter earnings this afternoon, and the numbers spell some more bad news for its $12.5 billion investment.

While the segment pulled in $1.18 billion over the past three months, it still posted an operating loss of $248 million. That’s actually an 13 percent increase over last quarter, when the segment racked up a loss of $218 million, and a 22.5 percent increase over the segment’s $192 million loss in the same quarter last year.

So, yes, Motorola is still very much in the red.

The losses, however, are unsurprising. Getting a device like the Moto X out the door is a costly process, especially when combined with services like Motomaker, as well as all the device’s marketing.

What’s perhaps more worrying is that Motorola’s revenue represented a 33 percent decrease compared to the same quarter last year. That leads to the big question:  Just how well is the Moto X selling?

We’ll see what Google has to say about the Motorola losses during its earning call this afternoon.

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