Microsoft posts strong quarterly earnings

The world's largest software maker Microsoft Corp. on Thursday reported its first quarter of fiscal 2012 earnings results that meet expectations from Wall Street analysts. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, this year, Microsoft reported a net income of 5.74 billion U.S. dollars, or 68 cents per share, representing increases of 6 percent and 10 percent respectively year-over-year. Revenue for the quarter was 17.37 billion dollars, up by 7 percent from the same period a year earlier. The average estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters is a profit of 68 cents per share and sales of 17.2 billion dollars. Among its business units, Microsoft said that Windows and Windows Live Division revenue was 4.87 billion dollars, a 2 percent increase over the prior period. Under the current troubled global economy, Microsoft's flagship product Windows has been undergoing slow sales growth due to a stagnant PC market. According to the latest data from market research firm Gartner, global PC sales rose only 3.2 percent during the last quarter, driven by emerging markets like China. In mature markets such as Europe and the United States, tablets like iPad are customers' favorites. Last week, Microsoft closed its 8.5-billion-dollar acquisition of online chat service Skype which is expected to integrate with other Microsoft products. It is also expected to introduce its first smartphones from the partnership with Nokia before the end of this year. In a statement, Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft, said that the company saw growing demand for its public and private cloud services and are excited about the upcoming holiday season with its consumer products like Windows 7 PCs, Windows Phone 7.5, Xbox and Kinect.