Microsoft Muscles Past Expectations
Wall Street had high hopes for Microsoft’s latest financials, and the company did not disappoint. Fueled by a strong PC upgrade cycle, it turned in a record fourth quarter with sharp gains in both profit and sales.
Net income rose to $4.5 billion, or 51 cents a share, from $3 billion, and revenue to $16.04 billion from $13.1 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 46 cents a share on $15.2 billion in revenue.
“We saw strong sales execution across all of our businesses,” Microsoft (MSFT) COO Kevin Turner said in a statement.
And indeed it did. Windows revenue rose to $4.5 billion from $3.2 billion in the same period last year. Profit for the company’s Windows division rose to $3 billion from $1.9 billion.
At Microsoft’s Business division, which includes its Office suite of software, revenue rose to $5.3 billion from $4.6 billion, and profits to $3.3 billion from $2.7 billion.
And the company’s Online Services division saw its revenue rise to $565 million from $501 million, though its loss grew as well–from $585 million to $696 million.
Below, the earnings release:
