MILPITAS, Calif.-Palm Inc. reported a relatively solid quarter of earnings, news that prompted the company to pronounce the end of the decline in the personal digital assistant industry and investors to rally around Palm shares.
Palm’s stock was up about 7 percent following the news to about $16.85 per share.
“We are encouraged by the recovering handheld industry fundamentals and Palm’s gains in market share,” wrote BMO Nesbitt Burns in a research note. “We are maintaining our Outperform rating.”
Palm reported total revenues of $225.8 million for its fourth quarter, slightly down from the $233.3 million it scored in the same quarter last year. Palm’s net loss was $15 million, way down from Palm’s $27.5 million net loss in the same quarter last year. Palm said it shipped 931,000 handhelds during its fourth fiscal quarter and nearly 4.2 million handhelds during the fiscal year.
“We end the year with favorable momentum on virtually every key metric of our corporate dashboard,” said Eric Benhamou, the company’s chairman and interim chief executive officer. “We are gratified to see our efforts to reinvigorate product innovation and to re-energize the market rewarded and our unit demand return to positive growth territory. While the economic context continues to be a challenge, we believe our opportunities for growing shareholder value have improved.”
Palm recently announced it will merge with rival Handspring Inc. The name of the new company has not yet been decided, but company executives expect it will retain the word Palm.
