Motorola sees first profit in three years thanks to Android

It looks like Android wasn’t just a great deal for Google. Now Motorola’s commitment to the platform is paying off as the company reports its first profit in over three years.

In its third-quarter earnings report today, the company reported that sales increased 6 percent year-over-year to $5.8 billion, with a net income of $108 million. The company also saw its first growth quarter since the fourth quarter of 2006.

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There’s no doubt that sales of Android smartphones were the driving force behind Motorola’s turnaround. The company sold 3.8 million smartphones in the past quarter (after introducing 22 different smartphones over the past year), and a total of 9.1 million devices overall. Mobile device sales jumped to over $2 billion from $1.7 billion last year.

A year ago, Motorola didn’t have any smartphones to its name — so its growth in that market is nothing short of remarkable. The company did ship more devices last year — 13.6 million, compared to the 9.1 million this quarter — but those were mostly cheap low-margin devices. With the advent of Android, Motorola has dedicated itself to high-end smartphones like the Droid series. That change of focus likely explains why the company’s sales in the US rose to 68 percent from 60 percent last year, and why sales from Latin America dropped nine points to 15 percent.