Microsoft Makes Q4 Profit of $6 B; Strong Windows Revenue

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Windows division enjoyed revenue increase of 24 percent from 2011's fourth quarter.

Microsoft has announced its financial results for 2012's fourth quarter, with strong performance in its Windows division.

It generated a profit of $6.38 billion, or 76 cents a share, on revenue of $21.46 billion during the last quarter, with its phone division generating revenue of $546 million. The former figure represents a decrease when compared to the $6.62 billion, or 78 cents a share, earned during the same quarter in 2011. The figure is also slightly below Wall Street estimates of 77 cents a share on revenue of $21.53 billion.

The Windows division generated revenue of $5.88 billion, an increase of 24 percent year on year. Since its late October launch, Microsoft has sold over 60 million Windows 8 licenses.

"Our big, bold ambition to reimagine Windows as well as launch Surface and Windows Phone 8 has sparked growing enthusiasm with our customers and unprecedented opportunity and creativity with our partners and developers," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "With new Windows devices, including Surface Pro, and the new Office on the horizon, we'll continue to drive excitement for the Windows ecosystem and deliver our software through devices and services people love and businesses need."

Elsewhere, the Server & Tools business that consists of products including SQL Server and System Center posted revenue growth of 9 percent to $5.19 billion. The Business Division, which includes its popular Office suite, generated $5.69 billion in revenue, a decrease of 10 percent.

The Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes the Xbox lineup, experienced a revenue decline of 11 percent to $3.77 billion. During 2012's Q4, Microsoft sold 5.9 million Xbox consoles, which is a drop of 28 percent. Bought for $8.5 billion in 2011, Skype experienced a 59 percent increase in call minutes.

The Online Services Division, which includes online advertising generated by web entities such as its Bing search engine, increased its revenue by 11 percent to $869 million.

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Zak Islam
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • CaedenV
    it all seems to make sense. Bing and Skype have seen huge improvements over the last year. Win8 may not be a huge sales point to enthusiasts, but all of the OEM orders for the new OS was no dobut a nice cash cow. All the while the xBox is just getting older by the day, and fans are already saving their pennies for the NextBox.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    Would have been alot more if they made metro optional and left the start bar alone...

    I know it would have been where I work at: 250 licenses easy...
    Reply
  • ravinmachine
    And most of that Windows revenue came from people buying up what's left of Windows 7 :)
    Reply
  • zorky9
    ravinmachineAnd most of that Windows revenue came from people buying up what's left of Windows 7But most of "what's left of Windows 7" had a free upgrade path to W8, so it wasn't really a case of this or that. A small part of why they got to 60 million licenses was due to the cheaper upgrade cost to W8 Pro. The smaller margin compared to previous upgrades was offset by the volume.
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    Poor Windows 8 haters must be furious
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    CaedenVAll the while the xBox is just getting older by the day, and fans are already saving their pennies for the NextBox.I'm more interested in Valve's box/platform. They're promising it will be more open.
    Reply
  • ojas
    Damn. Now this will be there excuse to keep metro forever.

    OR WILL IT BE?

    :P
    Reply
  • All those businesses that bought windows 8 computers and installed enterprise windows 7 on them! Yes pay the M$ tax and then install the more productive windows 7, no touch screen madness for the back office! the only people that need windows 8 are the people who say "would you like fries with that" for a living! The content creators that are using windows 7 will stay with windows 7, then when windows 7 expires they will move to Linux! Most of the 60 million windows 8 licenses are waiting to be installed on the OEM's servers in the basement, and all that remains of windows 8 on the business PCs is the sticker on the back or bottom that says windows 8!
    Reply
  • d1212
    Windows 8 rules.
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    UpgradeByDowngradeAll those businesses that bought windows 8 computers and installed enterprise windows 7 on them! Yes pay the M$ tax and then install the more productive windows 7, no touch screen madness for the back office! the only people that need windows 8 are the people who say "would you like fries with that" for a living! The content creators that are using windows 7 will stay with windows 7, then when windows 7 expires they will move to Linux! Most of the 60 million windows 8 licenses are waiting to be installed on the OEM's servers in the basement, and all that remains of windows 8 on the business PCs is the sticker on the back or bottom that says windows 8!I feel bad for bosses of 'content creators' who don't know how to use Desktop in Windows 8 and customize the UI to their likings, or at least have tech support who can make Windows 8 identical to 7 by installing Classic Shell (which has the option to boot directly to desktop and to disable active corners) on every Windows 8 PC in the office.
    Reply