The company’s stock was trading up 3.5 percent right after the earnings were announced.
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Revenue from phones declined by 71% from the same quarter a year earlier. Profit, excluding certain items, was 69 cents a share, Microsoft said yesterday in a statement. Microsoft also almost doubled the number of Enterprise Mobility customers to more than 33,000, while the installed base increased by almost 2.5 times since previous year. Productivity group sales gained 4.6 per cent to US$6.97 billion.
Here are the key take-aways from the Redmond technology giant’s fourth quarter, which wrapped up its 2016 fiscal year. (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) MSFT is transitioning away from software to cloud-based services and subscription products.
Microsoft has been competing with Amazon, Google and others for control in the cloud service and storage space.
Azure revenue grew 102% and the company’s server products and cloud services grew 8% during the quarter. Office 365 commercial sales surged 54% or 59% in constant currency, boosting the entire segment.
The poor result comes as the Company still refuses to declare sales for Xbox, on the bright side sales of their Surface tablet grew 9% despite problems with the Surface touch screen and active mouse. That beat Wall Street’s average forecast of $22.1 billion.
The pain from that purchase continues. The company had revenue of $22642.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $22137.35 million.
Microsoft reported fourth-quarter earnings for its 2016 fiscal year on July 19.
The company’s sales of Windows 10 are recognized over a few years, an accounting practice created to make sales line up with the lifetime of the computer the software is installed on.
Including some adjustments, revenue was $22.6 billion, compared with the average analyst estimate for $22.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Last year’s loss reflects the hefty impairment charge of $7.5 billion related to the write down of Nokia business, in addition to a restructuring charge of $780 million due to job cuts.
Revenue dipped to US$20.6 billion from US$22.2 billion in the same period a year ago.
The company also said in June that it will launch the first major update to Windows 10 on August 2 which will reinforce security, improve the Cortana digital assistant, Windows Ink pencil tool and Microsoft Edge browser.
Sales have dwindled as the company’s flagship operating system, Windows, continues to post sluggish growth.
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One such service is already benefiting. Microsoft closed out its fiscal year with a 38 percent rise in profit to US$16.8 billion.
