Palm, Inc. announced on Thursday its earning results for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009, ended May 29, 2009, and posted total revenues of $86.8 million. At the same time, the company also announced that gross profit in the time frame was $20.1 million, while gross margin was 23.1 percent. According to the mobile phone maker, the revenues and cost of revenues for the Palm Pre “are deferred and recognized over the product’s estimated economic life.”

The results unveiled include the effects of subscription accounting treatment that is required by GAAP, yet the maker also included non-GAAP adjusted measures so as to facilitate comparisons to its historic results. On a non-GAAP basis, the company announced Adjusted Revenues in the fourth quarter of $113.2 million, Adjusted Gross Profit of $30.4 million and Adjusted Gross Margin of 26.8 percent.

“The launch of Palm webOS and Palm Pre was a major milestone in Palm’s transformation; we have now officially reentered the race,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We have more to accomplish, but the groundwork is laid for a very promising future here at Palm. Our senior management team is capable, motivated and focused on execution; there is a large group of developers waiting to build great applications for Palm webOS; and we have a new product pipeline that we think will set a standard for the industry.”

During the quarter, the company managed to ship around 351,000 smartphone units, which marks a 6 percent increase compared to the previous quarter, yet also a 62 percent decline on a yearly basis. The maker also announced smartphone sell-through for the time frame of 460,000 units, a 5 percent drop in comparison with the third quarter of fiscal 2009 and a 52 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.

At the same time, Palm revealed net loss applicable to common shareholders of $(105.0) million, or $(0.78) per diluted common share. A year ago, the company posted a net loss applicable to common shareholders of $(43.4) million or $(0.40) per diluted common share. On a non-GAAP basis, says the phone maker, Adjusted Net Loss was $(53.4) million, or $(0.40) per diluted share, compared to$(23.9) million, or $(0.22) per diluted share Adjusted Net Loss registered a year ago.

For the entire fiscal year 2009, the company posted total revenues of $735.9 million, gross profit of$159.8 million and gross margin of 21.7 percent, while the number of smartphones shipped during the year totaled 2,407,000, marking a 25 percent drop compared to the previous year. “Net loss applicable to common shareholders for fiscal year 2009 was $(753.5) million, or $(6.51) per diluted common share,” Palm stated.