Motorola (NYSE: MOT - News) is cutting 3,000 jobs and delaying the spin-off of its loss-making mobile phone business after a slide in earnings that the company admitted would see it miss market forecasts for the fourth quarter.

The US telecommunications handset maker, which revealed on Thursday that it had suffered a loss in the third quarter, had agreed earlier this year to the demands of investor Carl Icahn to split off the handset unit.

But on Thursday the company said it would not meet the goal of completing the move by the third quarter of 2009 due to the financial crisis, although it said it intended to proceed with the spin-off at a later date.

The handset unit's revenue dropped 31 per cent to $3.1bn in the latest quarter, while its operating loss widened from $248m to $840m.

Motorola sold 25.4m mobile phones compared with 37.2m a year earlier and its share of the global phone market fell to 8.3 per cent, down from more than 20 per cent two years ago.

As a result, Motorola has almost certainly lost its number three ranking in global mobile phone sales to rival Sony Ericsson during the third quarter. Finland's Nokia and South Korea's Samsung are the two largest mobile phone makers.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola's recently appointed co-chief executive and head of the mobile phone division, warned that there was "no quick fix" for the business and acknowledged that the first half of 2009 would remain "challenging".

The company said it would re-focus efforts on high-end smartphones powered by Google's Android operating system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Motorola's overall third quarter net loss, equivalent to 18 cents a share, compares with a profit of $40m or 3 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Revenues fell by 15 per cent to $7.48bn, a sharper decline than Wall Street had expected.

The job cuts are in addition to the more than 9,000 positions Motorola has cut since last year. The company on Thursday said the expanded cost-cutting plans would result in $800m of annual savings in 2009.

The company said fourth-quarter profits would be 2-4 cents a share, excluding costs associated with the job cuts, while analysts had expected 7 cents.

Greg Brown, Motorola's co-chief executive, however highlighted the company's strong operating cash flow of $180m and said the company ended the quarter with a total cash position of $7.6bn.