More bad news for Palm in latest earnings

Palm

Last month, Palm lowered its sales expectations for its fiscal year 2010. Today, it announced its third quarter fiscal year 2010 results and it was more bad news for the company. While non-GAAP revenues topped US$366 million, it recorded non-GAAP losses of US$102.8 million (up from US$45.5 million the previous quarter).

“Our recent underperformance has been very disappointing, but the potential for Palm remains strong,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “The work we’re doing to improve sales is having an impact, we’re making great progress on future products, and we’re looking forward to upcoming launches with new carrier partners. Most importantly, we have built a unique and highly differentiated platform in webOS, which will provide us with a considerable – and growing – advantage as we move forward.”

While Palm managed to ship some 960,000 smartphone units during the quarter, a 23 percent increase over the previous quarter, its sell-through or sales to customers was only 408,000 units, a drop of 29 percent over the previous quarter and a 15 percent drop year-over-year.

Palm is hoping that a new sales campaign and a greater sales presence in stores will help improve sales. But carriers will need to sell off their current inventory before buying more and that suggests another tough quarter ahead for Palm.

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