As expected, Palm isn’t doing that hot. The company declared at the end of last month that their lacking smartphones sales had made them decrease their revenue expectations, so the numbers we’re hearing today aren’t that surprising. And while the number of smartphones they shipped is significant, it’s unfortunately not a good representation of the number of smartphones they actually sold. Still, the company has high hopes for what’s to come.
In total, Palm has announced that they lost $22 million, part of their $366 million profit. Based on shipped products, the company had a 23% increase from the previous quarter, effectively shipping 960,000 smartphones. However, the number they actually sold is drastically lower, topping off at 408,000 units. And while we’re not going to directly compare those numbers to the iPhone’s estimated 8.7 million units sold in the same time frame, we feel like we should at least point it out. No, we’re not expecting Palm to compare in numbers, but it goes to show that the company is still fighting an up-hill battle.
Palm’s CEO, Jon Rubinstein, said that the company’s under-performance is certainly disappointing, but he wanted to stress that the potential for the company is still strong. He also stressed that they are making great improvements on future products (which hopefully means more handsets, and not just different version of the existing ones), and that the changes they’re making to improve sales are having an impact. He also noted that they are looking forward to future carrier launches, which we’re taking to mean AT&T here in the States. Unfortunately, those may already be seeing some major delays. We’re hoping that Rubinstein’s hope is not ill-fated, as we would love to see some more products (and better numbers) from the company that brought us webOS. We’ve got our fingers crossed.
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