Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 26, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Sales rose an impressive 27 percent in the three-month period ended September 30 compared with the corresponding period a year earlier, to 13.8 billion dollars (9.7 billion euros). Quarterly profit increased to 4.3 (same period of previous year: 3.5) billion dollars, or 45 (35) cents per share. Microsoft, based in Redmond (US state of Washington), announced this on Thursday after the close of trading.
The industry leader thus far exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. According to Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, it was the strongest sales growth for the first quarter since 1999. Operating profit increased by more than 30 percent to 5.9 billion dollars. This showed that Microsoft could turn sales into profits and make strategic investments in the future. During the reporting period, Microsoft had acquired online advertising specialist aQuantive for six billion dollars, its largest acquisition to date. The video game «Halo 3» for the Xbox games console had a super start.
Microsoft has beaten Google in the race for the Facebook community website as an advertising partner and has set new standards for the valuation of the booming social-networking sites. Microsoft will continue to handle advertising for Facebook and is paying 240 million dollars for a stake of 1.6 percent. This assigns Facebook a total value of 15 billion dollars Microsoft also benefited from the sharply increased global demand for PCs. In the third quarter of 2007, worldwide PC- sales rose by 14.4 percent year on year to 68.5 million devices, market research company Gartner had recently calculated.
Microsoft expects sales of 15.6 to 16.1 billion dollars and a profit of 44 to 46 cents per share for the three-month period ending in December – it includes the Christmas business, which is enormously important for PC manufacturers and thus also for Microsoft. In the current financial year, total sales are likely to be 58.8 to 59.7 billion dollars, the software industry leader forecast. Annual profit per share is expected to reach 1.78 to 1.81 dollars.
