Meanwhile, Microsoft reported 40 cents in operating loss per share as a result of the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business, as well as the $780 million restructuring charge, the company said in its press release about the earnings statement.
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The company had been expected to post per-share earnings of 56 cents on revenue of $22.06 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
Revenue fell 5.1% to $22.18 billion, with the company blaming weak PC sales for the fall. But for the year to June 30, 2014, the local business reported revenue of $86.6 million, a 10% increase from last year.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) opened the session at $48.78, trading in a range of $46.48 – $47.08, and was at $46.96. Three other senior leaders, including Mark Penn, a former adviser of President Bill Clinton, are also leaving the company. Excluding the effect of currency fluctuations, revenue would have declined 2 percent.
The company’s only solution to courting developers to bring more apps to the Windows Phone platform – a central problem that has plagued the anemic adoption of Windows Phone – has been the ability to write Windows 10 “universal” apps that will work across device types.
Per-share earnings, after stripping out the writedown and other one-time items, also beat expectations. Nadella has spent the past year forging partnerships with competitors such as Box, and refocusing the company’s corporate cultural and mission towards shoring up its user base with a much-anticipated rollout of Windows 10 later this month. Microsoft’s shares fell 3 per cent to US$45.80 in extended trading on Tuesday.
Earlier in July, the computing giant had unveiled a $7.5bn (£4.8bn) charge relating to the smartphone enterprise it had acquired from Nokia.
Microsoft made a couple of significant business deals in this final quarter of its 2015 fiscal year. The company has a market cap of $377.14 billion and a P/E ratio of 19.35.
During this quarter, Microsoft took a write-down of its Nokia related assets that it purchased to obtain the Lumia line of smartphones.
The company’s commercial cloud business – which includes Office 365, Azure and software for helping businesses manage their data in the cloud – grew 88 percent from the same period a year ago.
“In our commercial business we continue to transform the product mix to annuity cloud solutions and now have 75,000 partners transacting in our cloud”, said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft.
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All told, there are multiple revenue and money-making routes for Microsoft, which can create value for shareholders, despite slumping PC sales. Microsoft cited continued demand for the Surface Pro 3, the introduction of the Surface 3, and accessory sales to explain this gain.
