Whatever else you want to say about Microsoft, it makes its investors happy. Very happy. Profits surged for its fiscal first quarter, the company reported today, helped nicely along by strong sales of Halo 3, Windows and Office Suite, reports AP.
On the news, shares rose a hefty sum today, from $31.99 to $35.55. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, profits climbed to $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per share, from $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per share, over the same period last year. These results beat Wall Street estimates – which called for 39 cents a share.
Revenue grew, too, 27 percent to $13.76 billion from $10.81 billion in the year-ago quarter, again topping analysts' forecasts by more than $1 billion. The business unit responsible for Vista contributed $4.14 billion in revenue in the quarter, 25 percent more than a year ago. It claims to have sold more than 88 million copies of Windows.
Halo 3 pushed the entertainment division into the black for the second time, contributing $165 million of profit for the quarter. Ad revenue, too, grew thanks to the aQuantive acquisition, but, the story reports, that even without that, ad revenue would have been up 25 percent
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