AOL Posts $970.8 Million Profit, Motorola Profits Decline by 48%

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AOL Posts $970.8 Million Profit, Motorola Profits Decline by 48%

AOL, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) (owner of Huffingpost and TechCrunch)  and Motorola Solutions Inc (NYSE:MSI) declared their second quarter results today. Revenues at AOL have been sliding for the past seven years, but the second quarter of this year witnessed the lowest slide (2 percent) since 2005. Total turnover of company was $531 million, and net profit equaled $970.8 million, or $10.17 per share. Last year the company had suffered a loss of $11.8 million in the corresponding quarter.

Analysts were expecting $519.36 million in revenues, and earnings per share of 10 cents. The hefty profit came from a patent sale to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) for $1.056 billion in June. According to TechCrunch, AOL has $1.5 billion in cash as of June 30, 2012. Time Warner had spun off AOL in 2009, since then the company has been struggling to become a diversified ad-based Web firm.

“Today’s results represent a significant milestone for AOL. The strong results and consumer performance we announced today are clear signs our strategic and operating efforts are translating into significant financial progress,” says Tim Armstrong, chairman and CEO of AOL.

The Internet firm’s share prices jumped 5.4% to $28.97 today. So far, the company’s stock prices have increased 82 percent from the beginning of this year.

Motorola Solutions Profits Decline Heavily

The second quarter profits of Motorola Solutions fell 48 percent, as expenses continue to rise and enterprise business shows signs of weakness. Total sales grew 8.3% to $2.15 billion, of which Government sales jumped 14 percent to $1.46 billion, while revenues from enterprise business were reduced by 1.6 percent to $689 million.

Profits in the second quarter were $182 million, or EPS of $0.60, down from $349 million, or $1 a share in the corresponding quarter last year.

Motorola Solutions, which manufactures handheld scanners, public-safety radios, and network gear, was created when Motorola, Inc. was split into two parts. The other part, Motorola Mobility which manufactures mobile phones and set-top-boxes, was acquired by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) for $12.5 billion.

The company has increased dividends by 18 percent, to 26 cents per share, and boosted the share repurchase program to $5 billion from $3 billion earlier.

Motorola Solutions’ share prices were at $45.29  on Tuesday.

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