Microsoft today reported its earnings for the second quarter of its fiscal 2015, with a revenue of $26.5 Billion and earnings per share of $0.71. These are almost exactly the same $26.33B revenue and $0.71 earnings per share numbers expected by industry experts.
However, despite a decent show on both hardware and software fronts, Microsoft’s shares were done by a 1%. They went further down by 2% in after hours trading.
Comparing this report with the previous year’s, Microsoft reported an approximate 8% jump in its revenues. However, its earnings per share has gone down by as much as 9% for that very period. the Redmond giant reported an operating income of $7.8 billion, and gross margin of $16.3 billion.
On the software front, both the pro and the Non-Pro version of Windows OEM reported a steep 13% decline in revenue as compared to previous year. This has been largely because of older Windows versions reaching the end of support and low-priced deals for academic institutions and students. However, the company recorded a decent 3% increase in its revenue from Windows volume licensing.
The Hardware division has been a strange mix of both positive and negative numbers. While Microsoft sold some 10.5 Million Lumia devices this fiscal period as compared to the 9.3 Million it sold last year, its revenues from this year’s sale have decreased to $2.3 Million from last year’s $2.6 million. It sold a good $1.1 Billion worth Surface devices this fiscal, which is a robust 21%+ growth a compared to last year’s.
As for Xbox, the Redmond giant sold 6.6 million Xbox consoles during the holiday quarter.
However, it is Microsoft’s Cloud platform which has seen a rapid, humongous growth. Microsoft reported a 114 percent increase as compared to the year-ago period. Its recent partnership with another people’s favourite DropBox, may have helped Microsoft in building a better image into consumer’s mind.
All in all, it was a decent enough quarter for World’s second most valuable firm. However, that Microsoft magic is still missing.
