Microsoft reported a rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by strong sales of its Windows operating system, and the company raised its full-year profit outlook, sending its shares up 4 percent,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for Reuters.
“Net profit in its fiscal second quarter rose to $4.7 billion, or 50 cents per diluted share, from $2.6 billion, or 26 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 30 percent to $16.37 billion,” Wakabayashi reports. “Analysts, on average, had forecast Microsoft to earn 46 cents per share on revenue of $15.94 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.”
“The second-quarter revenue and profit growth rates are exaggerated by results in the year-ago period when Microsoft deferred more than $1 billion in net income due to delays in releasing Windows Vista and Office 2007, which hit stores in early 2007,” Wakabayashi reports.
“For the fiscal year ending in June, Microsoft lifted its outlook. It now expects earnings per share to range between $1.85 and $1.88 per share, up from its previous estimate of $1.78 to $1.81,” Wakabayashi reports.
“Microsoft’s results and raised forecasts come on the heels of disappointing outlooks from technology bellwethers Intel Corp. and Apple Inc., which sent shivers through an already jittery stock market,” Wakabayashi reports.
“For the current quarter, Microsoft said earnings per share would range between 43 cents and 45 cents per share on revenue ranging from $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion,” Wakabayashi reports. “Wall Street analysts, on average, are predicting Microsoft will earn 44 cents a share in the March quarter on revenue of $14.4 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.”
“In after-hours trade, Microsoft shares rose to $34.60, after closing up 4 percent in regular Nasdaq trade at $33.25, ” Wakabayashi reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: 5:30pm EST: In After-hours trading, Apple (AAPL) is up $1.98, or 1.46% to $137.58.
@Reality Checker…”…have not had a Vista (or XP) computer lock-up or major problem in a couple of years….”
Huh? Vista been out for a couple of years? Have I been in a coma?
@Greybeard…I have a doctorate too…so what? I also have a hangnail, a Nintendo 64 and flatulence.
In one thread, MDN downplays Apple’s stock drop. Pay not attention to Apple’s recent losses.
In this thread, Apple’s stock price is the only thing important.
… and it’s sad that so many posters on this forum blindly follow MDN’s lead.
Microsoft sales are growing because they have figured out a way to sell two operating system copies for every computer that gets sold. They sell and OEM copy of Vista to the box assemblers, then they sell a boxed copy of XP to the poor consumers who need to uninstall Vista and install XP.
Microsoft business practices may be morally reprehensible and their products are clearly functionally and esthetically abysmal, but they definitely know how to suck money out of people’s pockets.
@ Reality’s Checker
Your comment to RC was awesome. I think you got him on both cheeks with that one!!!
“Yeah, the truth hurts doesn’t it?
Last 5 years…
MSFT +150%
AAPL +2016%”
@Reality’s Checker
Come on now, get real! Don’t start throwing out performance unless you are prepared to defend the bigger picture. So you conveniently pick a time window that shows the best performance for Apple and the worst for MS to make your lame argument?? Go back 10 years or more and the story is quite different. How many times richer is Mr. Gates than Mr. Jobs? Who made more in building extraordinary wealth over time? MS has paid dividends as well and the stock has split many more times than Apple. Yes Apple has done remarkably well the last couple of years and MS has been stagnant but the markets don’t lie, Apple’s growth is slowing and their rapid pace of innovations is slowing too. And don’t even get me talking about how many more times Dell has outperformed AAPL over the last decade. So like dynasties companies grow and eventually flatten, some come back and some don’t. Apple has had a great run and I’m sure it will continue to do well but the “hype” is out of the stock now and reality has set-in. That is why I bought it back after selling higher than it is now when the P/E was way up above 30. How much have you lost on paper recently? Jobs has lost over $700 million in a week. That truth has to really suck!
Dearest Zune Tang,
It’s not Lemon’s, it’s Lemmings, you tool!
MS’s earnings just prove that there is money to be made in selling shit.
“not just the kids”
Obviously saying that having no idea the depth of Apple’s core market.
Please Reality Checker, save us from ourselves you enlightened one.
M$ has always been a cash machine. This says things about the US economy being as bad as some fear-mongers would have you believe– gee, election year?
It does not say anything about Apple.
“Apple make nice products, so do Microsoft”
whahuh?
name ONE good MS product. seriously. please.
oh gods….
why is there always one person on ever forum whose name is “reality check” or “realist” or some other pathetic variation, and why is he always the one whose comments least reflect reality?
like the tootsie pop mystery, the world may never know…
Was anyone in this forum born before 2004? Seriously.
Looking at the level of these posts, it’s hard to tell.
@ Shen
Er… Excel. Word. PowerPoint. Years before iWork, you fool.
Get a f*cking grip, people. MS posting profit is not a bad thing, neither is Nokia posting a profit a bad thing. MDN seems to have become a zone for haters.
I love Apple, but before that I loved Commodore and the BASIC written for my PET 2001 was done by… Microsoft.
So all you juvenile idiots simply slamming MS or anyone else from the founding days of the personal computer industry can kiss my butt. You’re all born after 1980 so what the f*ck do you know about anything?
You are – we say in the UK – twats.
Ph.D.? Cambridge?
I could have sworn they taught grammar there!
LOL
I wonder if anyone else has noticed:
MSFT Revenue: 14.7B
AAPL Revenue: 9.7B
MSFT Profit: 4.7B
AAPL Profit: 1.6B
To summarize, Apple is catching up quickly with M$ in terms of revenue and their profit is 1/3 of M$.
Pretty good for a hardware company. I hope M$ keeps on pouring money down the drain with money losers like Xbox.
Did they give any details in regards to how many Zunes they sold?
Does anybody know any more than 3 people (apart from Zune Tang and his alter egos) that have windows vista? Maybe I don’t know many people but I can count 2 people I know how run it. Odd (but reassuring nonetheless). Maybe since windows xp sales were probably bottoming out before vista came it might explain the upswing in profit…or maybe they’re just charging more?
@doggone
based on you numbers, microsh*t is vastly more profitable (in relative terms) then apple. Microsh*t profit = 32% of revenue, apple = 16.5% of revenue. Guess there’s more money in software…well, microsh*’t’s vague approximation thereof…
AAPL’s rise to 200 at the end of the year was psychological (and a bit of window dressing) much like oil’s rise to 100. Now that the year is fresh, the market movers sold off their shares regardless of AAPL’s earnings to artificially deflate the share price so that they can buy it back in phases enabling them to fudge great returns with their mutual funds. AAPL is one of those stocks whose price is easily manipulated because they are the step-child in the tech industry. With YOY double digit growth and phenomenal accelerating growth with key products, it’s almost a guarantee that the “big boys” can show their clients that they made “smart investments” by using AAPL to get another double digit (if not triple) gain this calendar year.
“Our Gain. Your Pain.™”
Heh. That could actually be Microsoft’s real slogan.
And I first thought the headline was about MS dumping Outlook.
Rise in profits = more suckers conned and blackmailed into using windows software.
Poor suckers… one day you will learn.
Sheeeezzzzzeeeee. Apple post record profits and gets canned in the market. MicroCrap misses the market guess and gets praises.
It just goes to show you what crap is going on. 🙁
Its like the Titanic as it sails. Everything looks up, but we know where that ended up going.
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@Greybeard
I have to say Kudos for your doctorate from Cambridge You obviously earned that (what was it in?) No doubt you understand something about Microsoft. But to say “Apple make nice products, so do Microsoft” in the same sentence is an insult to Apple’s innovation over the past four decades.
Apple have made game changing products. Apple I and Apple II gave us the first Personal Computer with a keyboard and monitor. The Lisa and consequently the Mac gave us the first GUI based personal computers. (The Xerox Star was a prototype and very different. They did not have a production machine at that time as Zerox didn’t take it seriously). The iPod and iTunes music store gave us a convenient way to buy music with a high quality mass storage device to listen to it on. The iPhone changed the way manufacturers design mobile phone interfaces.
Microsoft have only ever made me-too products like Windows, The Zune, And now a silly table with cameras in it that is too expensive for virtually anyone. The only decent product they make is the Xbox (which I believe they bought – like the Zune) and consequently make a huge loss on.
The only way M$ can make money is to use various unethical monopolistic business practices and strong-arm tactics to muscle the PC manufacturers into bundling Windows with PCs and consequently take the choice away from the user as to whether they have a UNIX derivative or Windows on their new machines.
I suggest you research the history of Apple and Microsoft and take into consideration the fact that out of the box, All versions of Windows is useless in the internet without the addition of third party security add-ons.
So how can you say Microsoft have nice anything?
Still, I don’t have a doctorate so what so I know eh!!!
What everybody seems to forget are the huge expanding markets in Asia, i.e. India and China.
Microsoft has the lion’s share of the computer market there.
That’s why they’re increasing their profits. But that doesn’t effect Apple adversely at all.
More and more people are switching in the U.S., Europe, Australasia and Japan, and eventually that trend will start in China and India – when the Apple dealers are there.
The larger the playing-field the more rewards for Apple.