Motorola Mobility posts $86 million loss in Q1 on $3.1 billion in revenue, ships 8.9 million phones

Motorola Mobility, which is still awaiting approval to be acquired by Google for $12.5 billion has just released its earnings for the first quarter of 2012, and the company continues to lose money. The handset and cable box manufacturer posted a $86 million loss for the quarter on a GAAP basis, led by a $121 million dollar loss from the mobile unit. The company’s home segment was able to recoup some of those losses, as it pulled in $15 million more in profit than a year ago. We’ve heard that Google plans to sell the cable box unit (which is contained by the home segment), but the company is going to have to figure out a way to turn around Motorola’s cellphone business if it wants to make Motorola Mobility profitable. The mobile phone unit lost $24 million more this quarter than it did over the same period of time last year.

In the report, Motorola Mobility says that it still expects the Google acquisition to be completed before the half-way point of this year, which is quickly approaching. The deal has already been approved by the US and the EU, but a Chinese go-ahead appears to be standing in the way, as the nation began an even deeper investigation into the purchase just a month ago. The merger’s related costs (banking and legal fees, mostly) accounted for about 21.5 percent of the company’s losses for the quarter.