Palm’s May Quarter: Even Worse Than Everyone Thought

In conjunction with today’s announcement of a deal to sell to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Palm (PALM) disclosed in an SEC filing that it now expect revenue for the May quarter of $90 million to $100 million – the company had previously forecast that revenue would be under $150 million. (Weirdly, the Street consensus was above the guidance, and $164.6 million, though it would appear that number was thrown off� by some bad data, with the high estimate at a ridiculous $362 million.)

The company said revenue for the quarter is “being impacted by slow sales of the company’s products, which has resulted in low order volumes from carriers.” Translation: demand for the Pre and Pixi is evaporating.

Palm also said it expects to close the fourth quarter with between $350 million and $400 million in cash, which will be down from $591.9 million at the end of the February quarter – in other words, the company burned between $190 million and $240 million in the current quarter alone; at that rate, the company was going to run out of cash before the end of the year.


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