Palm Q4 profits, revenues double

Handheld maker's first quarter as public company

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 29th June 2000 10:42 GMT

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If only 3Com had held on to Palm for few more quarters. Yesterday, after the comms giant announced a major downturn in sales and a $340 million operating loss, its former subsidiary reported three-month profits that more than doubled quarter on quarter, and a year-on-year doubling of revenues.

For the three months to 2 June - Palm's fourth quarter - the company's net income hit $16.9 million (three cents a share), up just under 149 per cent from the previous quarter's $6.8 million (one cent a share). According to First Call, Wall Street had been expecting profits static at one cent a share.

Q4's income figure ignores IPO related costs. Take those into account and Palm's profit drops to a still healthy $12.4 million.

Palm posted Q4 revenues of $350.2 million, up 101 per cent from the $174.3 million it recorded for the same period last year, and up 29 per cent on the previous quarter's $272.3 million.

For the full year, revenues were $1.058 billion, an increase of 88 per cent over 1999's revenues of $563.5 million.

During the quarter, Palm shipped over 1.1 million devices. To date, it has shipped over 7.1 million units, the company said. ®