Losses at smartphone maker Palm widened in its fiscal fourth-quarter but comfortably beat analyst expectations, which saw the company’s share price soar in after-hours trading yesterday. According to a Business Week report, Palm reported a US$105 million loss, or 78 cents per share, for the three months ending 29 May, compared to a US$43.4 million loss in the same period a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, Palm lost 40 cents per share in the latest quarter, compared with a loss of 22 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue dropped 71 percent to US$86.8 million from US$296.2 million, while adjusted revenue was USD$113.2 million. According to a poll by Thomson Reuters, analysts had on average been expecting an adjusted loss of 62 cents per share on sales of US$80.6 million.

“The launch of Palm WebOS and Palm Pre was a major milestone in Palm’s transformation; we have now officially re-entered the race,” said Palm’s new chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein in a statement. “We have more to accomplish, but the groundwork is laid for a very promising future here at Palm.” The company said it shipped 351,000 smartphones during the quarter, down 62 percent from a year earlier. It is unclear how many of these shipments related to the Pre, which went on sale earlier this month. However, Investor’s Business Daily reported that Matt Thornton of Avian Securities estimated Pre shipments of about 70,000 units in the quarter. He forecast total Pre shipments of 250,000 in June, and total shipments of 4.9 million for Palm’s current fiscal year (2010).