Awesome PC Demand Drives Outstanding Microsoft Quarterly Results
MSFT SOUNDS A BIT MORE EXCITED THAN THEY USUALLY SOUND. --Duker
Operating Earnings Up 37% On Continued Excellent Office Sales
REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) today announced net income of $2.19 billion and diluted earnings per share of $0.40 for the quarter ended September 30th. Revenue totaled $5.38 billion, a 28 percent increase over the $4.19 billion for the comparable quarter last year.
This quarter's results include a gain of $156 million on the sale of the entertainment city guide portion of the MSN(TM) Sidewalk© online guide, while last year's results include a gain of $160 million on the sale of the Softimage subsidiary. Excluding the sale of these businesses, net income rose 37 percent and earnings per share grew 36 percent to $0.38, from $0.28. Including the gains, earnings per share grew 29 percent.
``We had a really big quarter driven by strong corporate demand for Office 2000, Windows NT© Server and BackOffice© applications,' said Greg Maffei, chief financial officer. ``It does not appear that Y2K had a significant impact on results. During the quarter, we also saw excellent PC unit growth, particularly in Asia, and we expect that trend to continue in the December quarter.' |
