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SEATTLE – Microsoft Corp reported higher-than-expected revenue for its fiscal first quarter on Thursday, helped by stronger sales of its phones, Surface tablets and cloud-computing products for companies, while keeping its profit margins intact.
The results allayed fears of investors in recent days that the industry shift toward lower-margin cloud services was proving hard for established technology leaders to master.
Microsoft shares, which have climbed 33% over the past year, rose another 3% in after-hours trading to US$46.37.
“In light of recent negative earnings results from tech bellwethers Oracle, IBM, SAP, VMware, and EMC, Microsoft is bucking the trend and we would label these September results as a solid accomplishment,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
Microsoft’s quarterly profit fell 13%, largely due to an expected $1.1 billion charge related to mass layoffs announced in July, which lopped 11 cents per share off earnings.
Including that charge, the world’s largest software company reported profit of $4.5 billion, or 54 cents per share, compared with $5.2 billion, or 62 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Wall Street had expected 49 cents per share, including the charge, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 25 percent to $23.2 billion, helped by the phone business it bought from Nokia in April, easily beating analysts’ average estimate of $22 billion.
