Posted on 07/19/2007 5:57:02 PM PDT by jdm
Microsoft (Quote) finally broke the $50 billion barrier for revenues in fiscal 2007 – and the company's financial team is predicting more of the same in the current fiscal year.
For the year, which ended January 30, the company brought in $51.12 billion, up 15 percent from last year's $44.28 billion. For the fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft chalked up $13.37 billion, a 13 percent jump from last fiscal year's fourth quarter revenues of $11.8 billion.
As to the bottom line, Microsoft brought in a whopping $14.07 billion in reported net income for the year, an 18 percent boost from last year's $12.6 billion.
And the current fiscal year looks to be another bang up year. "[Microsoft is] looking to deliver another year of double-digit revenue growth [in fiscal 2008]," chief financial officer Chris Liddell said on a conference call with analysts Thursday.
In terms of diluted earnings per share, the company logged $1.42 for the full year and $0.31 for the quarter. Microsoft took a $0.08 per share hit in the fourth quarter due to reserves of $1.06 billion that the company set aside in early July to deal with higher-than-expected failure rates of the Xbox 360 gaming console.
During the conference call, Liddell cited double-digit growth in several business sectors as contributors to the fiscal year's record-breaking revenue results. Among those, he said, were the Windows client business -- including Windows Vista which shipped to businesses in the second fiscal quarter and to consumers at the beginning of the third quarter – and the Office System – including Office 2007 which shipped simultaneously with Vista.
Other contributors included strong sales of SQL Server, Windows Server, and the Xbox 360, he said.
Microsoft officials did not give shipment numbers for Vista or Office 2007 or compare Vista shipments to shipments of Windows XP. Continuing strong growth in sales of PCs worldwide bode well for both products in fiscal 2008, however, he said.
Meanwhile, Liddell presented a continuing positive outlook for the current fiscal year. The company has already announced it will ship Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 next February about halfway through fiscal 2008.
Additionally, the company is planning a September 25 launch of HALO 3, the third release of its blockbuster Xbox 360 game.
Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive is likely to close in August as well, Liddell said.
In the current quarter, which ends September 30, Microsoft told analysts it expects to bring in between $12.4 billion to $12.6 billion. Meanwhile, for the entire year it said it expects to gross in the range of $56.8 billion to $57.8 billion, with diluted earnings in the range of $1.69 to $1.73 per share.
The company plans to provide significantly more information about both fiscal 2007 results and projections for 2008 next Thursday when it hosts its annual financial analysts meeting on its Redmond campus.
I wonder who bought the Zune?
ping
Right - and they charge me $125 for MSWord2007 student ... and I can’t get my system to go back to MS200Word .... I converted but now it won’t let me go back unless I now upgrade ....!!!!
No one I know, anyway. Probably a bad [like, really, really bad] investment on their part.
“I wonder who bought the Zune?”
Don’t laugh. Look at Microsoft’s history. When they want dominance in a market, they’re very very patient. NT 3.51 was slaughtered by Netware, but NT 4 led to domination that MS has never relinquished. Internet Explorer 1 and 2 were jokes, largely ignored. But by IE 3, MS was a threat in the browser market. By IE 5, they dominated it utterly. MS SQL server, once a joke in corporate IT departments, now dominates small and midsized businesses, and is now encroaching on Oracle’s territory. Wordperfect was once the standard, when Word was an also-ran. And Exchange server utterly dominates corporate email departments.
What Micrsoft wants, Microsoft gets. And they’re both flush with cash, and patient enough to make it happen.
MS has already taken the first step in paving the way for Zune’s dominance. Windows Media is now the dominant delivery codec for streaming audio and video on the web (except for movie trailers, where Quicktime still dominates).
Microsoft is a superpower financially, but fights like a third world insurgent in emerging markets (or markets that it does not yet dominate, like MP3 players).
This is not admiration on my part, simply a statement of facts. I use a wide variety of operating systems, and my favorite is Apple’s OS X. After I bought a Mac, I decided that I wouldn’t be buying Vista for my own personal use.
I would only add that money does not make companies --- it's talent. The dominance is acquired because there are many talented people at MS, and those people are given freedom to act. All of those victories were fought for and attained on merit. (This does now apply to the earliest history, when Gates famously told IBM that MS is not interested in operating systems, and IBM should talk to DRI instead.)
As to the bottom line, Microsoft brought in a whopping $14.07 billion in reported net income for the year, an 18 percent boost from last year's $12.6 billion.
Where is congress? We need to investigate Microsoft for these obscene profits. I smell price gouging.
We think alike; see #9.
Good catch, I'll call my congresscritter right now!
Great minds and all that
M$ is not gouging the public. ;-)
The government has no right to take the profits of private companies no matter what spin the liberal media throws out there to make companies look bad. Companies don't have to stay in the U.S..
Capitalism and these private companies are what is driving the economy, technology and raising living standards. The media has everyone out ready to lynch these private companies .
It really keeps amazing me that the liberal media has brainwashed even those on a Conservative site. Hope some of you are using sarcasm. Still I 've seen too many even on this site say anti-capitalist statements.
Revenue and Profit are not the same thing, not even close. My goodness, this is a capitalist society. Everyone MUST understand this difference.
I understand what you are saying, it just seems like MS has done nothing but misstep lately though. First the Zune and then the Vista debacle and now there is something about every X-Box 360 having a flaw.
Oh, and then there’s that patent they did for a new way to target ads by sniffing around people’s hard drives.
There was a time when IBM looked like the indestructible giant too. I wouldn’t say MS can’t recover but it seems everywhere MS steps lately is a big, deep cow pie welcoming their foot. Which, I guess if their foot was severely frost bitten that might be a good thing, but it’s the middle of July.
I just bought a Creative Zen. It’s kind of a nifty little device and it’s not an over-priced Apple and it’s not a big, bulky, over-priced Zune either, so it’s got those two things going for it.
Kidding. Yes, even here, envy of success is present.
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