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Smart phones sold to retail customers totaled 408,000 units, down 15% from a year earlier and 29% sequentially

By some estimates, Apple pre-sold more iPads online in one week than Palm sold smartphones through Sprint and Verizon stores in 3 months.  What’s more remarkable is that year-on-year decline implies Palm sold more Windows Mobile devices than WebOS which was not on the market a year ago.

link: Palm Narrows Loss but Retail Sales Decline – WSJ.com

• The company said there are over 2,000 apps in the Palm App Catalog.
• ASP was $367, down from $375.
• Almost all volume was from WebOS products (Windows Mobile devices are gone)
• For Q4, the company expects revenue to be less than $150 million.
• Q4 gross margin likely in the mid-teens.
• Guidance for $150 million in revenue, down 57% sequentially.

After hours market cap for Palm is about $833 million down 13%.  Expected revenue and ASP imply about 410k units will be sold into the channel in the following quarter.

Cusick says his checks find Palm is getting only about 1% share of handset sales at Verizon Wireless, or about 10,000 units a week, versus 400,000 units that were sold in to the company. At this rate, he says, there is “no prospect of Verizon follow-through” in the May quarter – and he sees weak sell-in at AT&T in the quarter as well. (AT&T has said plans to launch a Palm phone, but no timetable has been announced, I would add.) He sees Sprint launching other new smart phones soon, “which would reduce Palm’s share even further.”

link: Palm: Macquarie Downgrades; Cuts Target To $4, From $10 – Tech Trader Daily – Barrons.com

Stepping back into the wayback machine to read analyst commentary from 6 months prior to the launch of WebOS (June 27th, 2008):

In a report form Deutsche Bank’s (Sell rating). They noted that 38% of the shares were sold short, while 10 holders account for almost 70% of the shares outstanding.

In Deutsche Bank’s view, Palm’s future would be “entirely dependent on their new products, services and operating system,” all due next year. “If these turn out to be good, then the stock could do well,” he says. “If the new entries are not attractive, then Palm risks bankruptcy.”