Microsoft said last night that its first-quarter net profit, operating income and revenue climbed 11% from a year ago, boosted partly by surging demand for its Xbox 360 game device. The double-digit results beat market expectations and came at the high end of company forecasts.
'It was a very good start to what we are expecting to be an excellent year,' Microsoft chief financial officer Chris Liddell said. 'We continue to expect full-year double-digit revenue growth in 2007,' he added.
Microsoft employs over 1,200 full time employees and 700 full-time contract staff in Dublin.
Demand for Microsoft server and tools software was 'particularly strong' and the company's coffers benefited from increasingly popularity of the Xbox 360 video gaming console and related products, Liddell said.
The software colossus reported net profit for the first three months of its business year of $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per share. Operating income for the quarter ended September 30 was $4.47 billion and revenue totaled $10.81 billion. Net income for the same period in 2005 was $3.14 billion, or 29 cents per share.
Wall Street analysts had forecast Microsoft's quarterly profit would be 31 cents per share on revenue of $10.75 billion.
Revenue in the Entertainment and Devices Division soared 70%, driven by demand for Xbox 360 consoles, software, peripherals and Xbox Live, the company said.
Microsoft has sold six million Xbox Live systems since the console was released a year ago and Liddell predicted the number would jump to 10 million by the end of the Christmas shopping season. The company expected Xbox division sales to soar 33% in the 2007 financial year.
Microsoft was also seeing online advertising revenue increase quarterly and was on course to reclaim all the ground it lost after shifting to a new ad platform last year, according to Liddell.
Microsoft reduced its earnings expectations for the fiscal second quarter ending December 31 by $1.5 billion to reflect a likely drop in revenue due to the delayed release of its new Vista operating system, which is due out in January.
Liddell raised the company's revenue expectations for the fiscal year to from $50 to $50.9 billion, however, based on strong Xbox sales and the planned releases of Vista, Office and other new-generation software.
Microsoft is the world's leading software firm and its products include Windows operating system and Outlook e-mail and Office suite applications.
