Personal digital assistant pioneer Palm Inc. reported relatively solid earnings, with revenues up 3 percent compared with the same quarter a year ago, but the news didn’t seem to please investors, who sent the company’s stock down about 3 percent in trading after the news. Palm’s stock was trading at about $21.80 per share in after-hours trading.
Palm reported revenues of $177.4 million for its first quarter, up from the $172.3 million it reported during the comparable quarter a year ago. The numbers include both Palm’s hardware and operating system business. Palm’s net loss for the quarter was $21.7 million, way down from the $258.7 million it lost in the same quarter last year.
“Palm Solutions Group and PalmSource demonstrated continued strong execution,” said Eric Benhamou, Palm’s chairman and interim chief executive officer. “Each business posted year-over-year revenue growth. We improved our gross margin, strengthened our balance sheet with an increase in our cash balance and managed our inventory to 20 turns. As we look to the near and medium term, we notice many indications of a new growth wave in the making for the mobile device industry.”
Palm said it shipped 645,000 handhelds during its first quarter, bringing the total number of Palm-branded handhelds shipped to date to 22.9 million. The company said 1.2 million devices using the Palm operating system shipped, bringing the total number of Palm OS devices to 30.1 million.
