Motorola Ships Digital Set-Top No. 50M

Hitting a mountainous milestone, Motorola said it shipped its 50 millionth digital-cable set-top box earlier this month.

According to Motorola, 50 million set-tops stacked one on top of the other would reach a height of more than 11 million feet -- about 379 times as high as Mount Everest.

Motorola also said it set a quarterly record by shipping almost 2.5 million set-top boxes in the third quarter of 2006, and the vendor added that its On Demand Solutions unit (from its recent acquisition of Broadbus Technologies) shipped 57,000 video streams during the period.

The company released the figures as part of announcing financial results Wednesday.

Motorola's Connected Home Solutions unit, which comprises set-top boxes, had sales of $812 million in the third quarter, up 9% compared with the year-ago quarter. Operating profit was $21 million, which included acquisition-related charges of $42 million.