CHICAGO – Cell-phone maker Motorola Inc. posted a $28 million second-quarter loss Thursday as continuing weak sales resulted in its first back-to-back losses in five years.

The company, which analysts believe slipped to third in the world handset market in the quarter behind Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., said it expects financial performance to improve in its cell-phone unit in the second half. But it avoided predictions of when a full-fledged recovery will take hold.

Chief Executive Ed Zander, whose job is in jeopardy because of the tailspin and Motorola’s inability to come up with a competitive successor to its Razr cell phone, acknowledged that “there weren’t many really new ‘wow’ products” in the company’s portfolio in the first half of 2007.

“This has certainly been a very difficult year,” he told analysts on a conference call.

Asked if he still has the board of directors’ full commitment, Zander said: “We’re doing the right things, that’s all I can say at this point.”

Motorola, which warned last week that its results would fall short of expectations, posted a net loss of a penny per share for the quarter. That was down from a profit of $1.38 billion, or 55 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

Net loss from continuing operations totaled $38 million, or 2 cents per share for the most recent quarter and included charges of 4 cents per share from job cuts and insurance litigation.

Revenue fell 19 percent to $8.73 billion from $10.82 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting break-even per-share results on sales of $8.64 billion.

Sales at Motorola’s mobile phone business fell 40 percent to $4.27 billion from $7.14 billion.

The company’s other two segments saw an increase in revenue.

Motorola shipped 35.5 million handsets during the quarter.

For the first six months, the company had a net loss of $207 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with a profit of $2.07 billion, or 84 cents a share, in the first half of 2006. Revenue fell 11 percent to $18.2 billion from $20.5 billion.

Motorola shares rose 18 cents to $18.18 at the open of trading Thursday.

On the Net:

http://www.motorola.com

A service of the Associated Press(AP)