RSSPalm is still losing money
By Tim Conneally | Published September 17, 2009, 6:31 PM
Palm limped toward the launch of the Pre, relying on cash and short-term investments to pull it through eight consecutive money-losing quarters in an attempt to turn things around. And now that the Pre has been turned loose, and Pixi, Palm's second WebOS, device is on the way, the struggling company's long-term outlook remains modest, and it continues to post losses. Yet it doesn't want to get too specific about numbers.
For the quarter ending on August 31, Palm reported a loss of $161.1 million with revenues that dropped 82% to $68 million.
The release of the Pre caused a 134% quarterly surge in shipments, with more than 823,000 units shipped against Q4 2009 when 351,000 shipped. The annual growth this represents, however, is much less dramatic. When weighed against the first quarter of the last fiscal year, Palm only shipped 30% more units.
Furthermore, the number of units actually sold to customers is 21% lower than last year.
John Rubenstein, Palm's CEO said today, "With the launch of the Pre, we accomplished one of our most crucial milestones, now we're focused on growth. We're confident we're on the path to success."
But the company didn't say exactly how many Pres it had sold. Sprint, for example, still sells the popular Centro, which has sold 3 million units so far (and now goes for only $29), the Treo 755, and the Treo Pro; all of which cannibalize the Pre's market. There's really no indication of how much longer investors will wait before Rubenstein's company can be officially declared successful again.
However, the company is anticipating revenue between $1.6 and $1.8 billion this year, which actually beats out Wall Street's expected $1.58 billion, so maybe it won't be that long. After all, how much longer can the company keep this up?
Lets face it, Palm has lost too much market-share to RIM and every company that now makes and markets SmartPhones. They need nothing short of a miracle to keep them afloat. The Pre obviously didn't and i doubt the Pixi will help enough either. I'm just waiting for the headline: Palm Declares Bankruptcy
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|Much more likely to be taken over. Palm has some decent talent that any of the other big guns would like to have.
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|They should have sold the pre on Verizon.
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|Why can't this company grasp the idea of selling their products at slightly more that what it costs them to R&D and not less.
Either cut back on R&D or raise prices. (Or sack all the workers, which I presume will actually happen).
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|As much as I would love to see this company succeed, I don't know if it will. I can remember when I was abot 12 and had a zire. God those were the days. But now, with only a cdma version in canada, I had no choice but to go with blackberry. Why you ask? Bell is crap, cdma is old, and blackberry dominates the market.
Palm, send Canada a GSM phone and give it to rogers. I will purchase one as soon as it arrives. I dont care how much it runs me, I love the phone, I hate cdma.
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