There’s a lot of doom and gloom talk surrounding the PC market these days. Can Microsoft survive in such an antagonist climate? It certainly thinks it can, and its latest financial results show that it’s making money in the areas defined by its recent push into the devices and services business.
Microsoft reports today that it pulled in $19.90 billion in revenue in its fourth fiscal quarter ending on June 30. Microsoft says its revenue was impacted by three major things – a decline in the PC market, a $900 million charge related to Surface RT inventory adjustments, and $782 million of deferred revenue related to its Office Upgrade offer.
“We are working hard to deliver compelling new devices and high value experiences from Microsoft and our partners in the coming months, including new Windows 8.1 tablets and PCs,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Our new products and the strategic realignment we announced last week position us well for long-term success, as we focus our energy and resources on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value the most.”
Going into specifics, Microsoft CFO Amy Wood says that their revenue was bolstered this quarter by strong demand for its enterprise services alongside other services like Xbox Live:
“While our fourth quarter results were impacted by the decline in the PC market, we continue to see strong demand for our enterprise and cloud offerings, resulting in a record unearned revenue balance this quarter. We also saw increasing consumer demand for services like Office 365, Outlook.com, Skype, and Xbox LIVE. While we have work ahead of us, we are making the focused investments needed to deliver on long-term growth opportunities like cloud services.”
For its fiscal year 2013, Microsoft says that it earned $77.85 billion in revenue and $26.76 billion in operating income. These results were further impacted by $540 million of deferred revenue related to Microsoft’s Windows upgrade offer and a $733 million fine it paid out to the European Commission.
As for the individual divisions, they all see revenue increases across the board. Microsoft reports that its Business Division revenue grew 14 percent for the fourth quarter and 3 percent for the full year. The Server & Tools division grew 9 percent for the quarter and 9 percent for the full year. The Windows Division saw its revenue grow by 6 percent for the fourth quarter and 5 percent for the full year. The Online Services Division grew 9 percent for the fourth quarter and 12 percent for the full year. Finally, the Entertainment and Devices Division grew 8 percent for the fourth quarter and 6 percent for the full year.
Microsoft announced its massive restructuring after its fourth quarter ended so we won’t be able to see what came of that until its first quarter results three months from now. Will Ballmer’s plan of condensing the Microsoft business into a single entity focused on Windows pan out? We’ll probably not see much evidence either way with its next quarter results, but we might see something by the end of the year.
