The company’s shares recovered from a dive on Thursday September 21, when its price fell from $15.76 to $14.50, to close at $15.09 on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange at the end of the week.
The Sunnyvale, California-based maker of handheld devices earned $16.5m, or 16 cents a share, for its quarter ended September 1. That came in 9% lower than the $18.2m, or 18 cents, it earned a year ago. Still, excluding items, the company beat analysts’ expectations by reporting $21.5m, or 21 cents, in profit.
And revenue rose 4% to $355.8m from $342.2m last year.
Palm is facing a tougher competitive landscape for handhelds and its results were in line with Palm’s warning earlier this month that slower Treo sales would lower revenues by about $30m from previous estimates.
Looking ahead, the company forecast revenue of between $430m and $450m on profits of between 15 cents to 18 cents per share for the current quarter. Excluding items, its forecast earnings per share was in the 20-cent to 23-cent range, well below analysts’ expectations of 28 cents per share on revenues of $472.7m on average.
Palm said it would remain competitive by cutting costs and focusing on garnering market share rather than profits for the rest of the year.
