Grim results from Palm put pressure on Pre

Will the Pre save Palm?
Will the Pre save Palm?

Palm has announced an expected revenue fall of 73 per cent for the third quarter of 2009, and has also managed to eat nearly a third of its cash reserves.

The ailing manufacturer might have managed to get the world's press back onside with the announcement of the Pre, but it saw predicted income fall to, at best, $90m (£64m) for the quarter, well down on the $312m (£223m) for the same period in 2008.

The company has blamed the poor results on customers simply not wanting recent releases from Palm, and delays in the shipment of the Treo Pro have compounded the issue considerably.

Palm expects the problems to continue into the fourth quarter of the year, when it will hope to have released the Pre and possibly announced other devices based on the newly-developed webOS.

Mo' money, mo' money out the door

Spending at the company has also increased dramatically, with around $220m (£156m) left in the reserves after a spend of nearly $100m (£71m) for the quarter.

"The much-anticipated launch of the Palm Pre remains on track for the first half of calendar year 2009, but as expected we've got a difficult transition period to work through," said Palm President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Colligan.

"Despite the challenging market environment, the extraordinary response to the Palm Pre and the new Palm webOS(TM) reaffirms our confidence in our long-term prospects and our ability to re-establish Palm as the leading innovator in the growing smartphone market."

However, Palm also stated that it intends to update the firmware on the webOS periodically and free of charge, in the same vein as Apple does for its iPhone customers, meaning Palm has had to factor in the costs of that venture as well.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.