Shares of Motorola Inc. jumped Friday after investors got new details on the company's plans to split itself in two.
The stock was up 45 cents, or 6.8 percent, to $7.10 in afternoon trading.
Motorola plans to split off its consumer-oriented cell phone and set-top box businesses from the side that sells networking equipment to other companies.
Motorola said after the close of trading Thursday that it plans to complete the move in the first quarter of next year. The company initially had plans to split off just the cell phone business in 2009, but the recession put that on hold.
"While the spin is not expected for another year, we think it should help the struggling handset unit focus its efforts," Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff told investors in a note. He kept a "Buy" rating on the company's stock.
The cell phone business, which has lost ground to competition in recent years, is run by co-CEO Sanjay Jha. He is betting on a turnaround fueled by new phones that run on Google Inc.'s Android software. The first two such phones, the Droid and the Cliq appear off to a good start. The company shipped 2 million of them in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Motorola shares have traded between $2.98 and $9.45 over the past year.
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