Motorola recently brought out the first phone with Apple's iTunes

Reporting its results for the three months until the end of September, its net profits totalled $1.75bn (�1bn), compared to $479m a year earlier.

The world's second largest maker of mobile phones, sales of its handsets were up 41% year-on-year.

Quarterly sales rose 26% to a new high of $9.42bn, from $7.5bn for the same period in 2004. The US giant's results beat market expectations.

'Continuing growth'

Motorola said it had increased its share of the global mobile phone market to 19%, up 5.5% on the year, and by 1% since the second quarter of 2005.

It shipped 38.7 million handsets during the third quarter, driven by the popularity of models including the ultra-thin Razr.

Phones analyst Mike Walkley of Piper Jaffray & Co, said that despite initial reports of disappointing sales for one of Motorola's new key products - the iTunes-enabled Rokr - the company was set to continue to grow strongly.

"A couple years ago people thought the Chinese and Asian players were going to take over, and really the opposite has happened - it's really the two big guys [Motorola and market leader Nokia] that have continued to get stronger," he said.

"Based on their product portfolio, I expect the trend to continue into next year for Motorola."