The financial earnings numbers keep piling up — and after a week of poor performances, the closing bell in the stock exchange is beginning to sound a bit like a death knell. Last night, Microsoft released its figures for Q1, which fell by 22 percent on the same time last year as the PC market tries to pull out of a massive wobble.
Microsoft’s Windows 8
At this point, after looking at all the figures, the wobble is beginning to look like a terminal skid on the black ice of tablet sales. But with Windows 8 in the works for next week, Microsoft is hoping to get itself back on track.
While there are a lot of positives to be taken from the figures — despite the fact that, in most business sectors Microsoft declined — everyone was focused on PCs. Specifically, they are wondering whether the Windows 8 OS will have enough umph-factor to create interest in a market that has gone tablet mad.
Indeed, most analysts suggest the timing of the Windows 8 release is a response to the growing popularity of tablets, since it includes new functionality that favors touch screens aimed at PC makers. Those PC makers are already talking up new ranges of laptops that will be able to double as tablets with detachable screens, or screens that fold down onto the keyboard. Is this where the Microsoft rebound will happen? Only time will tell.
Microsoft Q1
But returning to the figures; Microsoft was well below analysts’ expectations. Net earnings dropped by 22 percent, from US$ 5.74 billion this time last year, to US$ 4.47 billion for the quarter ending September 30 this year.
Revenues were US$ 16 billion, down 8 percent from US$ 17.4 billion in the same quarter last year. Revenues from Windows declined 33 percent to US$ 3.24 billion — though if Microsoft had not deferred revenue related to Windows 8, that decline would be only 9 percent
Even the lucrative business applications division that develops and sells Microsoft Office products, which would normally be sustained by a buoyant PC market, declined by 2 percent, to US$ 5.5 billion in this quarter.
The Server & Tools business reported US$ 4.55 billion in first-quarter revenue, an 8 percent increase from the prior year period, driven by double-digit revenue growth in SQL Server sales and more than 20 percent growth in System Center revenue. This was also helped by the release of Windows Server 2012.
Standing back and looking at the numbers as a whole, they are in keeping with the figures of other major players in the market. IBM, which also reported earnings this week missed out on analysts’ expectations.
Microsoft’s PC Market
But for Microsoft, the real issue is how the PC market is going to hold up in the coming months and whether Windows 8 is going to help it pull it out of the doldrums.
The company is betting hard on this release — the biggest software product from Microsoft in years — with a US$ 1 billion global advertising campaign (already underway in the US) to counter act any negative feelings users may have about changes in Windows 8.
In fact, for this quarter Microsoft is using Windows 8 to explain many of its ills, which sounds a bit like placing too many eggs in the same basket.
While enterprise revenue continued to grow and we managed our expenses, the slowdown in PC demand ahead of the Windows 8 launch resulted in a decline in operating income. Multi-year licensing revenue grew double-digits across Windows, Server & Tools, and Microsoft Business Division products as businesses commit to our technology roadmap,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft.
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Source : cmswire[dot]com