Droid doesn’t (again): Motorola sees $86M Q1 loss, ships 8.9M phones

Motorola Mobility posted another not-so-hot earnings report for the first quarter today, with a net loss of $86 million on revenues of $3.1 billion. Considering Motorola lost $80 million in the fourth quarter last year, the company clearly needs to find some way to shape up to justify Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition (which is still pending).

The company shipped 8.9 million devices in the first quarter, 5.1 million of which were smartphones. Motorola’s mobile device segment is hurting even more than it was last year, with a loss of $121 million compared to an $89 million operating loss a year ago.

Motorola’s struggle shows yet again the winner-take-all nature of Android — where the top manufacturer (currently Samsung) does extremely well, while everyone else languishes. While it’s still unclear what Google will do with Motorola once its acquisition is complete, I have a feeling the search giant will need to break its promise of treating Moto the same as every other Android maker.

Motorola’s home device segment, which contains its cable box business, actually improved during the quarter with earnings of $68 million (compared to $53 million a year ago).

Google and Motorola continue to work with Chinese authorities to approve the acquisition, and they expect it to be completed during the first half of this year.