PalmGear Reports Improved Growth

Posted By: Ryan Friday, February 20, 2004 10:55:45 AM

PalmGear has announced continuing growth in 2003 to the tune of 169%. According to the online software distributor, the pace of consumer demand for Palm OS software content showed steady growth in Q4 2003 as unit sales rose 29% from October to December and trial downloads increased 5% over the same period.

"Our fourth quarter revenue for 2003 was 169% greater than the same quarter of 2002 signaling a rise in consumer awareness of third-party applications and customer commitment to the Palm OS handheld platform," said Ryan Wuerch president and chief executive officer of PalmGear.

The pace of consumer demand for Palm OS software content showed steady growth in Q4 2003 as unit sales rose 29% from October to December and trial downloads increased 5% over the same period. Fourth quarter application sales by category reports indicate an emerging trend toward more serious usage by consumers of their devices; Utilities (28%), Games (23%), Business/Finance (10%) and Education/Reference (7%).

PalmGear has been focusing on continually expanding distribution of their Palm OS content catalog. In 2003 the company launched operations in mainland China with headquarters in Shanghai and offices in Bejing, a fully-localized Chinese Palm OS site, successful expansion into retail distribution as well as many affiliate software and eBook stores.

PalmGear's retail distribution program was officially launched in the fall of 2003 during their participation in Retail Vision and resulted in the company's program earning recognition as Best Technology and Best Entertainment Product for Retail Vision 2003. The company is focused on the growth of the smarthphone market as well as specialty device markets such as Tapwave's award-winning Zodiac(TM).

PalmGear's strategic partnership with Pinpoint and implementation of Pinpoint Fuel, a carrier-class mobile content management platform that manages the sourcing, management, and delivery of mobile content, is positioned to broaden the availability of Palm software to the growing Palm Powered wireless handheld market. Implementing PinPoint's Fuel Technology will facilitate Over-the-Air (OTA) provisioning applications from PalmGear's expansive catalog of more than 21,000 digital media titles.

PalmGear recently announced a partnership with Tapwave to power the Tapwave software store, scheduled for launch in March. The new Tapwave Software Zone will feature Tapwave "Ready" titles, which means they have passed 3rd party quality testing and take advantage of the Zodiac's key features.

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Growth

Sholey @ 2/20/2004 3:40:11 PM #

Lets hope this is a reflection of the whole Palm economy.

Maybe now they'll pay the developers they owe money to

;-) @ 2/20/2004 4:45:07 PM #

But probably not.

It's just too big.

RE: Maybe now they'll pay the developers they owe money to

fitzsimmons @ 2/22/2004 1:39:01 PM #

Does PalmGear still owe developers past funds? This story has been going on for years following the Handango lawsuit. Can someone update us or lay it to rest once and for all?

RE: Maybe now they'll pay the developers they owe money to

hotpaw4 @ 2/22/2004 8:10:00 PM #

Yes.

RE: Maybe now they'll pay the developers they owe money to

abosco @ 2/22/2004 8:52:23 PM #

They do, but claim they don't. Kenny West seems to think that 30% annuity or 10% up-front is the equivalent of "paid in full".

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + T616

Kioks?!

mikecane @ 2/21/2004 1:07:31 PM #

Whatever happened to those damned kiosks that were supposed to sprout up so people could buy and beam apps on the spot? Or was that a joint venture with Handango?

RE: Kioks?!

mikecane @ 2/21/2004 1:08:20 PM #

Out damned typo! Subject: KioSks.

RE: Kioks?!

RhinoSteve @ 2/21/2004 2:37:54 PM #

The trails massively failed and the quietly went away.

The conclusion from the trials is that comsumers do not want to buy anything without physical mass in a retail store. Also, the overall PDA market penetration wasn't there. Store personnel wasn't skilled enough and the "bundling" of apps beamed from a kiosk after you bought a PDA didn't flesh out since there is no PDA that is ready to go immedately out of the box to take in the software.

Customers can do the same thing at a PalmGear kiosk that they can do at their home computer but they need to travel somewhere. Not really a good exchange. Also, the margins split between the store owner and distributor was too thin.

In my opinion, the failure of the kisok's is a turning point that is helping define the division between retail stores and internet sales.