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Microsoft FY2014 Q4 Earnings: Revenues Up, Profits Down Slightly
Microsoft has released their latest earnings report, and it's not as bleak as last week's news might have you suspect. Quoting Forbes: Microsoft reported $23.38 billion of revenue for the fourth quarter, up 17.5% from the same period last year. Net income, however, came in at $4.6 billion, down from last year and behind Wall Street analysts' consensus estimate, both about $5 billion. At 55 cents earnings per share were down 4 cents and a nickel short of the Street’s call. For the full year, revenue clocked in at $86.8 billion an 11.5% increase from a year earlier. Net income was $22.1 billion and earnings per share were $2.63.
They took a hit from finalizing the acquisition of Nokia's handset division (not unexpected). The cloud services side of the business appears to be growing, while traditional software sales have stagnated. The layoffs will cost Microsoft between $1.1 and $1.6 billion over the first half of next year.
They are taking on more and more hardware business. This is a much less profitable venture than they had before, so I don't expect things to be as rosy as you seem to. It is very hard to maintain the profit margins that they are accustomed to. Wall Street has given them a huge boost over the last year, but remember that comes after 10 years of no movement, and they still aren't anywhere near their highs during the dot-com bubble.
Still, the layoffs show that they are serious and PC sales have finally stabilized. While I am not a stockholder, I think you are right to be bullish in the short term.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Microsoft has returned 100% in the past 10 years, dividends reinvested, or 7.25% annually. S&P 500 has returned 118% with dividends reinvested, or 8.2%.
Which, in my mind, makes them kind of equal. Microsft is now considered a value company , so lower risk and lower reward. Adjust for risk and it looks better. Also, chosing the past 10 years is kind of arbitrary - why not 7 or 12 years.
All I hear is your butt hole whistling non sense. You are saying this without any backing. If you speak of their office product line then FINE, but the rest of their products including Server and OS products are continuously evolving to take advantage of new hardware and strategies that help businesses. This is especially true of their server offerings. Even the office products add new features that if you don't care for can avoid by sticking to your old version. Office 2000 can still read files created with the newest version of office so as far as I'm concerned nobody can claim they were forced to move forward.
Creativity has nothing to do with the progress MS has made in the past years. They continue to offer drop in solutions that don't require ridiculous amounts of expertise to implement which is how it should be for any business all the way to small enterprises. I can't speak for large enterprise because I lack that experience but I can speak for anything below that.
Their development tools (VS Series) are continuously implementing the newest standards as well as major improvements to their windows only features.
You sound like a hardcore Linux fanboy that can't see past his monitor. Real Linux techs understand where each operating system belongs and what it's true application in the real world is. You clearly don't.
Most companies are happy to turn a 10% profit after expenses, employees, and so forth. 20% is a fantasy for them.
Yet the greedy Wall Street pricks aren't happy with a 20% profit.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.