Microsoft said last night that its net profit climbed on record first-quarter revenue as businesses snapped up the latest offerings from the US software giant.
Microsoft reported net profit of $5.74 billion on revenues of $17.37 billion for the quarter ended September 30.
"We saw customer demand across the breadth of our products, resulting in record first-quarter revenue and another quarter of solid earnings per share growth," Microsoft's chief financial officer Peter Klein said."Our product portfolio is performing well," Klein added.
The results met Wall Street expectations. Demand for Microsoft software offered for purchase or as services hosted in the Internet "cloud" lifted the company's revenue in the quarter.
Microsoft said its consumer-oriented offerings, including its popular Xbox 360 video game consoles and the Xbox Live online community connected to the device, positioned it for a winning Christmas shopping season.
Xbox has been the top-selling videogame console in the US for the past nine months, and exclusive shooter title "Gears of War 3" sold over three million copies in the week after its release in September.
Microsoft is also beefing up television content offered for viewing at the Xbox Live online entertainment network for console owners.
Bing was gaining ground on Internet search leader Google and claimed about 27% of the US market, taking into account online queries Microsoft's search engine handles at Yahoo websites.
Klein said that a top priority at Microsoft is working with Yahoo to fix problems integrating Bing search and, more importantly, maximising revenue from ads associated with query results.
He said that Microsoft remained strongly committed to its online search and advertising alliance with Yahoo, which is searching for a new leader after the recent ouster of chief executive Carol Bartz. Microsoft is considered to be among suitors interested in buying the faded Internet star.
Yahoo rejected a $47 billion takeover bid by Microsoft in 2008. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said this week that his company "got lucky."
Microsoft this month closed its acquisition of Skype and is hard at work merging the Internet telephony technology into offerings such as Xbox Live and smartphones running on freshly released Windows 7 mobile software, he added.
Microsoft is also looking into ways to make more money from Skype with advertising and premium services, according to executives. On October 7, European competiton officials approved Microsoft's $8.5-billion takeover of Internet voice and video leader Skype.
Microsoft's purchase is aimed at boosting its presence in an online arena dominated by Google and Facebook, both of whom were also believed to have been interested in Skype along with computing giant Cisco.
Skype users can make low-cost or free phone calls over the Internet using their computers or smartphones. Skype bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice and video calls over the web.
