Motorola Inc. reported Thursday that its Connected Home Solutions division, which includes the company’s set-top and cable modem group, posted $675 million in sales for the fourth quarter, up just 1 percent from $669 million a year earlier and down from $710 million in the third quarter.

But the home solutions unit’s operating earnings climbed to $60 million, up nearly 40 percent from $43 million the year before and up slightly from $59 million in the third quarter. 

Motorola said it shipped 1.4 million digital set-top boxes in the fall quarter, down from 1.6 million set-tops in the previous quarter. The fourth-quarter shipments included the company’s new line of QIP set-tops, which feature built-in home media networking.

Moving beyond video, Motorola said it shipped a record total of 500,000 embedded multimedia terminal adapters (eMTAs) in the fourth quarter, up from 476,000 voice modems in the previous quarter. The company did not disclose how many total modems it shipped.

Overall, Motorola’s fourth-quarter revenue jumped 18 percent to $10.43 billion, from $8.84 billion the year earlier, thanks largely to strong sales of its wireless phone equipment.

Total net income for the quarter soared to $1.2 billion, up 86 percent from $647 million a year earlier.

For the full year, the company’s Connected Home Solutions segment generated sales of nearly $2.8 billion, up 25 percent from $2.2 billion in 2004. The unit posted operating earnings of $185 million for the year, up 27 percent from $146 million in 2004.