Microsoft Beats Q3 Earnings Estimates, Shares Jump (MSFT)
Shares of the software giant, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) climbed almost 3% in aftermarket trading on Thursday after the Company said that revenue in the fiscal third quarter climbed 18% while earnings also comfortably edged past Street’s expectation.
The better-than-expected results comes just a few days after when market research firm IDC said that PC sales in the first quarter of 2013 tumbled at a fastest rate than ever, since the firm first started to compile quarterly PC sales data in 1994.
However, after excluding the impact of “deferred” revenue, Microsoft’s key revenue generating segment, Windows, showed a flat growth, letting down investors who were hoping that Windows 8 system will boot the top line.
Although many industry experts fancied that the arrival of Microsoft’s touch-friendly Windows 8 will help the struggling PC industry, unfortunately, unfamiliarity of the ’tile’-based interface and the lack of competitive-priced devices discouraged consumers to buy the new system, according to analysts/ Reuters.
For the fiscal third quarter, the Company reported a profit of $6 billion or 72 cents a share compared to a net income of $5.1 billion or 60 cents a share, in the same quarter of last year. Analysts’ consensus estimate was for earnings of 68 cents a share, according to a data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Overall sales during the period rose to $20.5 billion from $17.4 billion, in the year-earlier quarter, matching analysts’ consensus estimate.
During the quarter the Company had to pay a hefty fine of $733 million as the European antitrust regulators found Microsoft guilty of not keeping its promise of expanding choices of internet browsers on windows operating system. However, deferred revenue from Windows video game operation and office helped offsetting the impact.
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Post Written By: Ed Liston
Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.
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