Microsoft reports strong Q2 financials thanks to Kinect, Office, & Windows 7
Despite various commentators warning Microsoft’s latest financial results wouldn’t be great, the opposite is true.
According to the latest financial results from Redmond, which were leaked early before the market closed, Microsoft had a strong second quarter (ending Dec. 31, 2010) thanks to the Xbox 360 and Kinect, Office, and Windows 7. Microsoft managed a record second quarter for revenue, and brought in more revenue than Apple. Maybe life under Steve Ballmer isn’t so bad after all.
Microsoft’s revenue for Q2 was $19.95 billion, while net income was $6.6 billion or 77 cents per share. Analysts were suggesting something closer to 68 cents per share. These figures compare unfavorably and favorable (respectively) to Apple, which managed $26.7 billion in revenue, $6 billion in income.
There are several sectors of the business being thanked for these positive financials.
The Entertainment and Devices Division had a strong quarter mainly thanks to sales of Kinect, the new motion-control system for the Xbox 360 games console. Microsoft claims it sold 8 million of the devices in the first 60 days after launch, which far exceeded expectations. Revenue from the division as a whole rose 55 percent on the same period a year ago.
The Business Division also had a good quarter, with revenue growing by 24 percent on the same period a year ago mainly thanks to strong sales of Office. Once again this exceeded everyone’s expectations. Sales of Windows were down but Windows 7 has now passed the 300 million licenses sold milestone. Elsewhere, revenue from advertising efforts on the Bing search engine were up 23 percent, while the Internet Explorer 9 beta has been downloaded 20 million times.
It seems as though everyone is waiting for the Microsoft machine to stop working, to stop pumping out products that make money, to slow down and eventually die. But the financial results keep on proving the naysayers wrong. I still think Microsoft needs to evolve in the longterm, but in the meantime it seems to be doing fine thank you very much.
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