“While both Palm and RIM released new devices recently—RIM’s Storm 2 in October and Palm’s Pixi phone last month—the companies continue to face pressure from the iPhone… According to research firm IDC, RIM and Palm gained market share in smart phones from the June quarter to the September quarter. But neither kept up with the momentum of the iPhone, which gained nearly five percentage points in that time. Palm, RIM and Apple declined to comment,” Kane and Sheth report.
“‘The expectations for both [Palm and RIM] are unusually low,’ said Tero Kuittinen, senior analyst at MKM Partners. He added that the marketplace has been tough for every company with the possible exception of Apple, which sold 7.4 million iPhones in the September quarter,” Kane and Sheth report.
“Analysts on average expect RIM to ship about 9.6 million smart-phone units for the quarter—up 43% from the same period last year. But RIM warned in September that prices on its phones would likely fall in coming months,” Kane and Sheth report. “Analysts say Apple’s price cut on an older iPhone model to $99 in early June also pressured BlackBerry sales in quarter.”
Kane and Sheth report, “Palm, Sunnyvale, Calif., is also projected to show mixed results for its fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30… Morgan, Keegan & Co. analyst Tavis McCourt expects Palm to ship 720,000 smart-phone units in the quarter, up from 599,000 a year ago.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Say a psalm for beleaguered Palm, or give them alms, because for Palm, Apple’s iPhone is no calming balm, it’s napalm. Certainly this won’t becalm Palm investors who should be having qualms that Palm is soon to be embalmed. And things look grim for margin-squeezed RIM, too.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “mark” for the “RIM/grim” suggestion.]