Motorola Inc's Co-Chief Executive told shareholders on Monday that the company's enterprise and networks business would consider paying a dividend after Motorola splits into two separate entities next year.

Greg Brown, who is expected to continue as head of the network equipment and enterprise business after the split said his business would certainly contemplate and consider a dividend post separation.

The executive was responding to a shareholder question at the company's annual meeting in Rolling Meadows, a Chicago suburb, about when Motorola planned to resume dividend payments.

The company stopped paying dividends last year to preserve cash as it worked on revamping its declining mobile phone business, which has lost ground to both larger and smaller rivals in the last few years.

Motorola plans in the first quarter to split off its mobile devices and TV set-top box unit into a separate entity from its network equipment and enterprise business.

The company's enterprise unit, which sells to corporate and public sector clients, was its biggest revenue generator in the first quarter with $1.7 billion in sales or 34 percent of the company's total. Its mobile devices unit brought in revenue of $1.6 billion, representing 32 percent of total sales.

(Reporting by James Kelleher, writing by Sinead Carew; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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