Palm upbeat despite loss

The world's leading handheld PC manufacturer, Palm, has revealed a pro forma operating loss of $16m for its fourth fiscal quarter.

The result showed a slight improvement as expenses dropped and sales improved.

Palm reported that its revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002, ended 31 May, were $233m.

This slightly exceeds the company's revised guidance of $230m set on 30 May, and is 41 per cent higher than the $165m revenue Palm reported in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2001.

Eric Benhamou, Palm's chairman and chief executive officer, said that the company had performed "quite well in a down market".

The company ended its fourth fiscal quarter of 2002 with $297m in cash andshort-term investments, which was up from the prior quarter, Benhamou said.

Palm shipped about 900,000 handhelds during its fourth fiscal quarter, and more than four million Palm handhelds during the 2002 fiscal year.

The company said the total number of Palm-branded handhelds shipped to date was over 18 million.