Palm Loses Over Half a Billion Dollars in Three Months

Venerable, yet troubled smartphone and PDA vendor, Palm has reported a loss of over half a billion dollars for the second quarter of its fiscal year. Smartphone sell-through for the quarter was 599,000 units, down 13 percent year over year. Smartphone revenue was US$171 million, down 39 percent from the year-ago period.

The company posted a loss of US$506.2 million, compared to a loss of $8.85 million a year ago. Stripping out a change in valuation allowance for its US deferred tax assets of $396.7 million, Palm reported a loss of $80.2 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of US$7.8 million a year ago.

This is the firms sixth consecutive quarterly loss.

"WeÃ're working through an undeniably difficult period," said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executive officer, "but near-term challenges shouldnÃ't overshadow the fact that we are on track to deliver a breakthrough new platform and products that will bring a truly differentiated smartphone experience to our customers and reestablish Palm as a leading innovator in the mobile industry."

The hiring of former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein and the success of the Centro have done much to quell critics who claim that Palm had lost its creative touch, but the firm has been forced to rely on using rival OS from Microsoft for its latest devices.

The company is set to show off its long awaited Nova operating system and new smartphone range next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Posted to the site on 19th December 2008