Motorola Inc. posted its smallest revenue decline in three years, and its stock price jumped as much as 8.5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, Bloomberg reported.

Strong first-quarter sales of the U.S. mobile phone maker’s touch-screen Droid, a smart phone running Google Inc.’s Android software, are helping Motorola emerge from a three-year sales slump.

“Droid sell-through was very strong in the first quarter, and I anticipate we’ll get further traction with Droid in the marketplace,” said Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha, noting that he expects the company to gain market share this quarter.

Motorola is concentrating on phones that can surf the Web and play video, a popular segment of the handset market.

“The success of the Droid has got them back in the game and given them great marketing support from Verizon,” said Tavis McCourt, an analyst with Morgan Keegan & Co. in Nashville, Tenn.

Now, McCourt said, Motorola must follow up with new sleek handsets in order to win users from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry.

Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola projected second-quarter earnings of as much as 9 cents a share. Its share price rose 32 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $7.24 at 9:51 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Earlier, it climbed as high as $7.51.

It was the largest gain in more than two months.

Motorola said it shipped 2.3 million smart phones in the first quarter, up from 2 million in the previous three months. Its first-quarter net income was $69 million, or 3 cents a share. That’s compared with a loss of $231 million, or 10 cents per share, a year earlier.