.KEYWORD lead
.FLYINGHEAD PALMPOWER ANALYSIS
.TITLE News analysis: growth in Palm market
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY 2001 was a rough year for everyone. However, there are signs that things are starting to pick up, which is undeniably positive. Steve Niles, who does our daily news updates, shares the good news that came out of some recent Palm announcements.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
Believe it or not, there are still people out there who basically only use the four main Palm OS applications–Date Book, Address List, To Do List, and Memo Pad. If you’re making effective use of your Palm handheld in the enterprise, however, you’re most likely using some of the more than 13,000 applications currently available for Palm OS available from Palm, Inc. and the hundreds of third-party developers.
Someone is certainly using them, because overall sales of handheld software in U.S. retail channels tripled to 900,000 titles sold in 2001, up from 225,000 titles sold in 2000. Obviously, handheld usage is expanding well beyond personal information management. Palm handhelds are gaining even wider popularity when it comes to performing all manner of business and other productivity functions, gaming, and document reading.
According to NPDTechworld (at http://www.npdtechworld.com), a provider of market information, Palm OS based applications accounted for more than 97 percent of handheld software titles sold in the United States last year. Since software drives hardware, software sales are a good indicator of hardware sales, which supports the generally acknowledged fact that Palm handhelds dominate the marketplace.
.H1 Revenues up
Palm’s recent success was further supported by the company’s March 21 report that Palm’s revenues of $292.7 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2002, ended March 1, were up 1 percent from the $290.6 million reported in the preceding fiscal quarter. While this is down from the comparable period last year, it’s Palm’s third consecutive quarter of improved financial results, suggesting that the economic slowdown that has hurt businesses of all kinds may be easing off.
In total, Palm reported pro forma net loss–excluding the effects of special excess inventory and related costs/benefit, amortization of goodwill and intangible assets, purchased in-process technology, separation costs, and restructuring charges–totaled $14.0 million, or $0.02 per share. This compares with pro forma net loss of $36.6 million, or $0.06 per share, reported in the second quarter of fiscal year 2002 and pro forma net income of $9.3 million, or $0.02 per share, for the third quarter of fiscal year 2001.
Actual net income for the third fiscal quarter, calculated in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, was $2.9 million, or $0.01 per share, compared with a net loss of $25.2 million for the second quarter of fiscal year 2002 and a net loss of $1.9 million, or $0.00 per share, for the third quarter of fiscal year 2001.
.PAGE
According to Palm, the company’s key accomplishments during the quarter include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET An 8.6 percent increase in pro forma gross margins to 29.1 percent, in line with previous guidance of 28 percent to 30 percent;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Three expandable product introductions from the Solutions Group: the Palm i705 integrated wireless handheld for mobile professionals and enterprises, the Palm m130 color handheld for first-time customers, and the Palm m515 color handheld for executives;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The shipment of 1.3 million Palm branded handhelds, bringing the cumulative total to 17.2 million, and contributing to the shipment of more than 21 million Palm OS handhelds;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The early release of beta software for Palm OS 5 to licensees and developers at the PalmSource Conference and Expo;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Reaching a total of more than 200,000 registered developers of the Palm OS platform.
.END_LIST
.H1 Number one in Europe
Palm, Inc. is continuing to strengthen its leadership position in the European handheld computing market as well. According to GfK, an international market research organization (at http://www.gfk.com), Palm, Inc. is firmly in the lead with 42.5 percent of the handheld device market (as measured by units) for December/January 2002. This is 30.8 points ahead of its nearest competitor. These results show an increase in market share of 4.4 points on the previous period of October/November 2001 and growth of 1.6 points on the same period a year ago.
There were a number of key markets where Palm handhelds surged ahead to record significant gains on the October/November 2001 results. Notable achievements occurred in France, where the Palm handheld market share rose to 47.7 percent; Germany, where almost half of the market has been secured with 49 percent; Italy, which achieved 38.4 percent of the market; The Netherlands, which also grew significantly to reach 37.8 percent; and the UK, which achieved 43.5 percent market share. In each of these countries, Palm is the market leader.
The results demonstrate a very successful Christmas period for Palm Europe, which–supported by very well-received end-of-year promotions, including a special SD Card offer, as well as strong print, outdoor, and radio advertising campaigns–saw excellent sales of the Palm m100 and m500 series handhelds.
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As fans of the Palm OS platform, we hope to see the company continue to make progress both in the U.S. and abroad as we look ahead to the rest of 2002. Let us also hope that this year proves to be more economically stable for everyone.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on NPDTechworld, visit http://www.npdtechworld.com.
For more information on GfK, an international market research organization, visit http://www.gfk.com.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6fef3
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