Attendees watch a video presentation during the Microsoft Worldwide
Partner Conference 2014 at the Verizon Centre in Washington, DC, in this
July 16, 2014, file photo. Microsoft on October 23, 2014, reported that
its quarterly profit dipped to $4.5 billion while revenue rose above
$23 billion. The earnings topped Wall Street expectations, pushing
shares of the US technology titan up more than two percent in
after-market trades. AFP | PHOTO
SAN FRANCISCO,
Microsoft
on Thursday reported quarterly profits ahead of most expectations, as
revenues got a boost from its Xbox consoles and Internet "cloud"
services for enterprises.
Net profit in the quarter
dipped to $4.5 billion from $5.2 billion in the same period a year ago,
but topped most analyst forecasts.
Revenue rose above $23 billion, its best ever for the fiscal first quarter..
The better-than-expected resulted pushed shares of the US technology titan up 3.8 percent to $46.75 in after-market trades.
"We
are innovating faster, engaging more deeply across the industry, and
putting our customers at the center of everything we do, all of which
positions Microsoft for future growth," Microsoft chief executive Satya
Nadella said in a release.
COLLOSAL DATA
Microsoft
said revenue hit a record high for its first fiscal quarter, aided by
the popularity of its Xbox video game consoles and Surface tablet
computers along with businesses turning to software offered as services
in the Internet "cloud."
"Customers are embracing our
latest technologies from C to (cloud-based) Azure and SQL Server" for
corporate customers, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner
said.
Revenue in Microsoft's Devices and Consumer unit
grew 47 percent to $10.96 billion, with the company bringing in nearly a
billion dollars from sales of its Surface Pro 3 tablet computer.
Xbox
sales more than doubled to 2.4 million in the quarter, which saw the
newest version of the console release in 28 new markets.
Revenue
was up 10 percent when it came to commercial offerings, with cloud
services such as Office 365 and Azure growing 128 percent, according to
Microsoft.
At a press briefing in San Francisco this
week, Nadella detailed the latest moves in Microsoft's strategy to
entice businesses with the ability to tap into the power of colossal
online data centres as needed.
Microsoft's event
spotlighted how the company is playing on its strengths with software
used by businesses to capitalize on a trend toward renting computing
power, storage, or software as services hosted at data-centers in the
Internet cloud.
"The Microsoft cloud is the most
complete cloud offering that empowers every business across every
industry in every geography," Nadella boasted at the event.
Microsoft
in on track to bring in $4.4 billion this year from cloud services, but
is spending about $4.5 billion annually on major investments such as
huge data centers packed with computing equipment, executives said at
the briefing.
VALUABLE INSIGHTS
Microsoft sees its main rivals in the cloud computing space as Google and Amazon Web Services.
Microsoft
has cloud data centers in 19 regions around the world, and some of the
facilities are large enough to hold a pair of jumbo jets.
Microsoft's
"cloud" will handle demanding computing loads for businesses and let
them better extract valuable insights from their data, along with
"public" cloud power augment "private" in-house systems.
The
earnings results include the newly acquired handset division of
Finland's Nokia, whose Windows-based smartphones are struggling in a
market dominated by Google Android devices and Apple's iPhones.
Revenue from phone hardware was more than $2.6 billion in the quarter, according to Microsoft
No comments :
Post a Comment