Motorola’s Fallen And It Can’t Get Up

For Motorola (MOT) , the darkest days may still lie ahead. Tero Kuittinen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital , this morning repeated his Underweight rating on Motorola, and cut his price target on the shares to $2.50, from $3.50. He thinks the company will miss its Q4 guidance, and fall short of the 2009 consensus “by a wide margin.” In short, Kuittinen contends that “Motorola is now on the verge of losing its status as a global handset brand.” Kuittinen says that recent discussions with AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) “imply a clear slowdown in sales, just as the level of U.S. competition is vaulting to a new level with the launches of LG Incite, Samsung Eternity and other appealing and conspicuously cheap November debuts.” He says that AT&T is “moving away from Motorola as fast as it can,” and that the “quadruple punch” of new models from LG , Samsung , Apple and Research in Motion is “devastating to ... (link)