Palm Reports Slight Net Profit

Palm Inc. has just reported that it earned a small net profit during its most recent financial quarter. The company earned $2.9 million, or 1 cent per share, during the months of December through February, typically the slowest quarter of the year for handheld sales. Last quarter the company had a net loss of $25.2 million. The company had revenues of $292.7 million, up very slightly from the previous quarter. This is about 10% higher than Palm's CFO Judy Bruner predicted for this quarter back in December and almost $40 million higher than analysts had thought. This is the third quarter in a row that revenues have increased.

However, the profit was so slim that after the effects of costs related to inventory, goodwill and restructuring charges, the company had a pro forma net loss of $14 million, or 2 cents per share. During its previous quarter, the company had a pro forma net loss of $36.6 million, or 6 cents per share.

The analysts' consensus estimate was for a pro forma net loss of 4 cents a share.

The amount of cash the company has on hand increased this quarter, rising from $242 million to $285 million.

"We're pleased to report our third consecutive quarter of improved financial results, despite the traditional post holiday seasonal slowdown," said Eric Benhamou, Palm's chairman and CEO. "Tangible progress across virtually every aspect of our income statement and balance sheet gives us increased confidence in our ability to execute and to return to profitability.''

Speaking of returning to profitability, in a conference call with analysts after this announcement, Mr. Benhamou committed to making a pro forma profit in the current quarter. During the same call, Ms. Bruner predicted that revenues would be between $290 million and $300 million.

During this same call, they said that sales of the m515 and m130 have taken off but the i705 isn't doing as well. These new models have pushed up the average selling price for the company's handhelds. Gross margins were better than expected at 29.1%. Palm's average selling price climbed from $164 to $183.

This is the first quarter Palm reported the results separately for its PalmSource subsidiary. PalmSource had revenues of $19.5 million, $11.7 million of which came from the licence fees Palm pays PalmSource to use the Palm OS. After expenses, PalmSource had a pro forma loss of $1 million.

PalmSource is the part of Palm responsible for developing the Palm OS. It plans to split PalmSource off as a separate company someday.

Palm shipped 1.3 million Palm-branded handhelds during this quarter, bringing the cumulative total to 17.2 million, and contributing to the alltime total of more than 21 million Palm Powered handhelds ever shipped.

If Palm paid PalmSource $11.7 million in licencing fees for 1.3 million handhelds, a little math shows that Palm's licencing fee must be $9 a handheld.

Palm shares rose to $3.26 from a Nasdaq close of $3.17 in aftermarket trade. Taking this into account, the company gained almost 10% during the day.

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Ooops! Where did that come from??

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:21:38 PM #
I thought they were supposed to implode?

RE: Ooops! Where did that come from??
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:25:40 PM #
It's no longer a train wreck, just slow implosion.

Palm Beats Wall Street Expectations
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 8:48:42 AM #
Palm Beats Wall Street Expectations, Says Getting Closer to Profitability
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/020321/earns_palm_2.html

Palm Inc upgraded by JP Morgan based on strong execution (PALM) 3.17: JP Morgan upgrades to Long-term BUY from Mkt Perform following last night's earnings report. In terms of other stocks in the space, this is one occasion where company specific execution appears to have won through. Notes that PALM intends to return to profitability by Q4, two qtrs ahead of firm's expectations. JPM expects stk to outperform both RIMM and HAND in the short-term. Firm has a 12-month target of $4.50.

-Today 22-Mar-02 Reit UBS Warburg Strong Buy ($6)

-Today 22-Mar-02 Up JP Morgan Mkt Perform -> LT Buy ($4.5)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?P5C41219

Palm Stock Rallies
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 9:25:53 AM #
Palm rallied 53 cents, or 17%, to $3.70 in early trading. The stock has gained about 25% in the last 24 hours. Handspring's stock was up 38 cents, or 6.8%, to $5.08.

RE: Ooops! Where did that come from??
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:32:49 AM #
buy people, so I can sell at $4.05

Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:24:30 PM #
Hmmmmm, all those doomsday people are running back into their caves.....Good Work Palm, Keep it up.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 8:04:07 PM #
> Good work...

Yes, we can say thank you to Yankowski. It was his excellent leadership and management that led to this victory.

We should bring him back. If not, we should reward him with a $5 million bonus.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 8:21:41 PM #
Yes, thanks to Yankowski over ordering Palms that they had to write-off and reposted $28 mil of it as sales for the last quarter.

Gee, he sure had a good business strategy. Almost prescient that the PDA market was going to get better in Spring so, what the hell, just over order, write it off and repost it as sales later and make Palm look good.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 9:30:12 PM #
Are you talking about the Yankowski who left the company like 5 or 6 months ago? Why? What does he have to do with the company any more? Quit living in the past. You might as easily blame the sagging U.S. economy on Thomas Jefferson.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 11:03:10 PM #
Palm's doing way better than Microsoft is. They just gave the man in charge of the PPC the boot on Monday. That makes three top executives who used to control the PPC that have been kicked out in the last few months. Man, PPC is really floundering.

I've heard the PPC has just a few more months to start making some money before Microsoft pulls the plug. They've poured a trainload of money down that rathole and got nothing much to show for it. Compaq and H-P are pushing them to cancel it. They lose tons on their PDAs and would have dropped the PPC years ago if Microsoft hadn't threatened to stop selling them Windows if they did.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 11:17:15 PM #
few more months?

that after Microsoft is releasing schedule for the next several PPC OS updates, the smartphone long term agreement, and overal release block in relationship with desktop OS?

OK sure. and Palm will release that spiffy OS before the Second Coming.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
peter167 @ 3/21/2002 11:42:42 PM #
Forget about the smartphone, especially the ones without a touchscreen. No one is stupid enough to run .NET (or whatever it should be called like sting(k)er) on their low to mid-end cellphones because MS may charge them $10 or more. The big players will not use .NET unless it is $2. $10 is too much a profit for the cellphone manufacturers out of $150-200.

Thera PDA/Phone for $800 - (What is Thera? I haven't heard it before!!!)
HP 92x $1000

I cannot gurantee anyone but myself that I will not waste a $1000 on a PDA/phone. I will just carry two devices and the extra $500 cash in my pocket. I also get much better battery life as well; not a bad deal at all.

******************
Lie is the future.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 12:22:05 AM #
yeah, and Palm is having such a great success attracting big phone makers. (only samsung and kyochera so far)

in smartphone department Microsoft is ahead by next quarter. Zendo and O2. Not the first tier phone maker but definitely has bigger market than Samsung.

Thera is just repackaged Toshiba Genio, with its CF slot stuffed with Phone receiver. Audiovox is running the show. (again it's a US phone company) O2 will be made by HTC, so it will bring the iPAQ manufacturing experiance to drive down price.

and speaking of price, how about than i705? $450 + ~$480 annual (over $1000??? a year) and you still have to pay your cellphone bill too? yikes. And who still use 8mb B/W hardware for net purposes.

that compared to brand new smartphone like O2, J928 with full PDA capabilities + voice??? Go ahead spend your $1000 with that i705.

the economy is there pal.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
arielb @ 3/22/2002 3:04:19 AM #
The bad news for PPC is that with the new merger between HP and Compaq, either iPaq or Jornada will have to go. My bet is that it will be Jornada that has to bite the bullet.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
mtg101 @ 3/22/2002 4:18:25 AM #
Excuse me? mmO2 bigger than Samsung? Samsung are like joint 3rd biggest manufacturers with Siemens (Nokia and Ericsonny being 1st and 2nd respectively).

mmO2 haven't ever made a handset before - they're a UK phone network, and a small one at that! Now they're making this XDA as an attempt to focus on the PDA / Communicator market - which given the low volumes involved many predict will fail and see them bought out - probably by Telifonica.

And as for Sendo (not Zendo) - they're a family run business in the UK!

Unlucky m8, but you are talking bollox.


---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 5:30:32 AM #
"The bad news for PPC is that with the new merger between HP and Compaq, either iPaq or Jornada will have to go. My bet is that it will be Jornada that has to bite the bullet."

I was at CES at Las Vegas and saw the new HP PPC Starfighter with GPRS built in. Wonder if this device can survive the changes.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 9:39:22 AM #
"Quit living in the past. You might as easily blame the sagging U.S. economy on Thomas Jefferson."

No, I blame it on Clinton. The economy has been known throughout history to react to policy as far back as 2 years. The upturn that we are seeing is based on Bushs policy of giving tax money back to the people that it was taken from unecessarily during the Clinton years.

My point is that Yankoskowsky blew it and the new management is just now seeing an upturn.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:20:02 AM #
O2 is made by HTC, the same guy who make iPAQ, which by now is the biggest PDA manufacturer in the planet.

Zendo in US will be supported by Sprint with Microsoft money, so any dork could have run it.

Samsung maybe one of the biggest conglomerat in the planet and one of the biggest phone maker with huge Korean market, but in US and European phone market their market share only worth a cat's lick. BTW, samsung is also making CE PDA for korean market with phone capability.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:20:55 AM #
>"No, I blame it on Clinton. The economy has been known throughout history to react to policy as far back as 2 years. The upturn that we are seeing is based on Bushs policy of giving tax money back to the people that it was taken from unecessarily during the Clinton years."

Such a golden age for the 'laissez faire' capitalists to shoot there mouths off without having to back it up with any concrete math. The invisible, magic hand!!! Hmmm....i'm pretty sure we've tried this neo-conservative..errr..i mean neo-liberal approach to the economy before - oh yes, it was the industrial revolution!!! And while that brought us all manner of technological advances, none of it mattered to the average joe until the government took a more (dare i say it?) 'socialistic' role in the economy so that 10 yr old kids didnt have to work 12 hr days in order for their families to earn a poverty level existence. Flash forward to the end of the 20th century - "hey, whats all this government 'red-tape' and taxes all about anyway? Damn it, if we could just get all that money back to the corporations that was stolen by the evil government, than we'd all be rich and happy!!!". Idiot. Clinton didn't screw the economy - the .Com enthusiasm and short sitedness of the entire western-corporate-world did.

RE: Great News For Palm = Bad news for others....
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:39:02 AM #
It's Home Simpson theory.

I didn't do it. It was like that when i got here.

PALM FOREVER!

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:25:23 PM #
Wahoo! Just keep tradin on the name baby!

PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:26:08 PM #
PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price. Not many institutions own this because of analyst consensus, but now it will be a huge buying for PALM.

PALM IS APPLE IN EARLY NINETIES

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:29:24 PM #
I don't think that the stock price is too low concidering they still are not making a profit after all their costs.

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
peter167 @ 3/21/2002 5:45:54 PM #
Neither is Handspring or Compaq (sometimes even including their PC business.) Neither is RIMM...

Are you happy about this?

******************
Lie is the future.

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 8:26:05 PM #
So, how much of Palm stocks are you holding? Are you Mary Meeker in disguise?

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
peter167 @ 3/21/2002 10:02:39 PM #
You should ask how MANY Palm stocks. Or how MUCH value of your holdings is?

******************
Lie is the future.
RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:53:01 AM #
It's now at $3.82. It started yesterday at $2.98. Not bad for 1.5 days.

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 11:56:01 AM #
and it was like 120 1 or 2 years ago !? 3.9x now ? Not too bad for 1 to 2 years :)

RE: PALM STOCK is too cheap at this price
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 12:03:26 PM #
$120 was a sign of how stupid or insane investors were during the tech bubble. The only people who bought Palm at that price were the people who thought the company was worth $70 billion!! Palm had a market cap greater than General Motors! No, it was driven to that unsustainable price by amateur investors who had no clue what they were doing.

In the aftermath of that insanity, Palm has been driven down well below what it is worth. The stock will rebound to something reasonable.

Really

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:45:34 PM #
Great news, as soon as my Palm stock hits back where I bought it @ $24.00 a share I'll sell it, lets see at this rate I'll be about 355 YEARS OLD!

RE: Really
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 5:56:48 PM #
Palm's share price went up 10% today. At that rate, it will be over $24 in 22 days. I know that's not realistic but you were the one who used the phrase "at this rate".

RE: Really
ptc @ 3/21/2002 6:01:37 PM #
$24 sounds like a dream - I bought mine at $74! I think I need to give myself a dope-slap for that misguided purchase...


_________
Paul C.

RE: Really
crustyedgeofinnovation @ 3/21/2002 6:24:51 PM #
well at $74 you probably didn't buy too much, probably less than a thousand or so, you can buy more, if you're still interested and cost average down a considerable amount. I loaded up at $2.20 about 5 months ago and i have averaged down considerably from the $28 dollars i bought in last year...if you still believe in the company, and have some cash, you should think about it...

Mario

RE: Really
ptc @ 3/21/2002 6:48:30 PM #
Mario - I tried cost averaging, buying at $17 when I really thought it wouldn't go any lower. At this point If I buy more PALM there is a good chance my wife will try and kill me...

_________
Paul C.
2 Rules on Stock Buying to Remember
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 7:10:38 PM #
1. Never try to catch a falling knife.
2. Just because a stock looks "cheap" doesn't mean it can't get a lot cheaper.

RE: Really
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/22/2002 2:29:14 PM #
I agree with the "never catch a falling knife" philosophy. That's why I haven't averaged down on my $33 cost basis yet.

However, now that PALM appears to be turning a corner, especially in the opinion of the analysts, institutions, and the street in general, it may be time.

Some bad business decisions, and extremely poor timing with respect to the bear market have really beat this stock down below where it should be.

IMHO

RE: Really
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/23/2002 6:01:38 PM #
"1. Never try to catch a falling knife.
2. Just because a stock looks "cheap" doesn't mean it can't get a lot cheaper."

Spoken like a true speculator. Stockbrokers love people like you, especially when they need to trade up on their yatchs.

The only sensible way to invest is to buy stocks in solid but undervalued companies. Palm, Inc is in the middle of a savage price war, so I wouldn't touch them myself. However, the fact that they have managed to make a slight profit despite the red ink everywhere else*, is a remarkable achievement and one which bodes well for the future.

Footnote: * We will never know whether Sony makes a profit on its devices. (Japanese accounting practices are such that that they make Enron appear to be a paragon of disclosure.) It would nevertheless be surprising if they were profitable - Sony is a relatively new entrant into the US market, and taking into account R&D, marketing costs, the costs associated with establishing new distribution chains and their fairly small market share, it's likely that they are not making any money either.

Let's see ..

peter167 @ 3/21/2002 5:47:45 PM #
Let's see what Gartner Dataquest want to play around the market share number for PPC vs Palm.

1.3 million units sold is huge, especially in the slow selling Spring!!!

******************
Lie is the future.

RE: Let's see ..
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 6:07:25 PM #
Here's something interesting about Gartner. One of its analysts is now writing about Pocket PCs for Pocket PC Thoughts...and he's a Microsoft MVP too! Don't sound like independent, unbiased analysis to me.

RE: Let's see ..
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/21/2002 6:11:27 PM #
Yea, I saw that too. The snow job that MS and Gartner have been trying to lay on handheld world is almost unbelievable. PPC Thoughts is the perfect candidate too: the most "rah, rah" Microsoft site on the net. They actually get indignant though if anyone calls them on it. But how can they possibly spin hiring a Gartner analyst to write for them?

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