Microsoft just reported its first quarter 2012 earnings with revenues of $17.37 billion, an 7% increase from the same period of the prior year. Microsoft’s operating income was at $7.20 billion, its net income was $5.74 billion and its diluted earnings per share were at $0.68, a 10% increase from last year.
Microsoft attributed this revenue growth to the demand of several key products,”We had another strong quarter for Office, SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync, and saw growing demand for our public and private cloud services including Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online, and Windows Azure,” said Microsoft COO Kevin Turner. Notably, Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype was also completed during this quarter.
The company beat Wall Street’s revenue estimates, which were at $17.25 billion, and hit EPS estimates, which were at $0.68 a share, square on the nose.
The Business Division and Windows Live Divisions continued to be the company’s biggest assets, with $5.62 billion and $4.8 billion in revenue and $3.25 billion and $3.66 billion in operating income respectively. Microsoft’s Online Services Division, a.k.a. Bing, continued to operate at a loss despite 19% revenue, at $494 million lost versus $558 million in the same quarter last year.
Microsoft’s earnings call will be at 2:30PM today, and you can follow it live here.
Alexia Tsotsis
Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.
Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured.
Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market.
Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and…