Cingular soars, Moto's market share rises

Cingular said today it added 1.7 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2006, boosting the carrier's total customers to 55.8 million. Cingular also said it has reduced subscriber churn to an all-time low of 1.9 percent. On the financial front, the nation's largest carrier reported good news as well. For the first quarter of this year, revenues were $9 billion, an improvement of 9.1 percent since the first quarter of 2005.

On the other hand, Motorola had a more mixed quarter. For the first three months of this year, while total revenue rose 23 percent to $10.01 billion from the same period in 2005, profit fell $6 million to $686 million, largely due to declining sales from its network division. Thanks to the ever-popular Razr, however, Moto said cell phone sales rose 61 percent to 46.1 million units, boosting its total share of the global cell phone market to 21 percent. The last figure is especially impressive, considering the company's share amounted to just 13 percent before the Razr hit the market. And the Slvr is no slouch either. During its first 180 days, sales from the slim candy bar phone outpaced sales for the Razr.

As for other manufacturers, Sony Ericsson and Nokia beat forecasts, while Samsung's profit fell 25 percent.