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Test version of motorola story

Motorola phone sales were better than expected, says Reuters, after rival Samsung "was slow to beef up its product portfolio in time for the holiday season."

The story was based on the fourth quarter sales figures from Samsung, which is seen to have suffered from competition from a resurgent Nokia. Reporter Deborah Cohen says that analysts found that there were deeper reasons for the slump in profit: they said Motorola gained by launching a huge slew of new models.

Cohen said that the flow of new models - Motorola launched 20 new phones in the fourth quarter - generated visibility in markets.

Interestingly, the markets that carried the weight were not the consumers. Analysts quoted by Cohen said that typically unhappy customers were phone networks, with customers like Verizon offering fewer Samsung options to the end-user.

But the report still has Samsung ahead of Motorola: "Motorola's share of the global handset market stood at 13.4% at the end of the third quarter, according to Gartner Dataquest, placing it third worldwide. Nokia, the market leader, had roughly 30.9%, while Samsung had 13.8%."