Microsoft Posts Disappointing Earnings, Shares Tumble

Microsoft’s financial report for its fourth fiscal quarter missed analyst expectations by a wide margin, thanks in part to very poor sales of its Surface tablet line. The company’s stock fell sharply.

Mashable’s Seth Fiegerman reported, “Microsoft is having a bad day. The company’s stock was down more than 8% when the stock market opened Friday following a dismal earnings report, and declined by as much as nearly 10% in early morning trading. That is, Microsoft lost more than $25 billion from its market cap in a matter of hours.”

ZDNet’s Larry Dignan noted, “The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $4.97 billion, or 59 cents a share, on revenue of $19.9 billion. The results include a $900 million inventory writedown for Surface RT that amounts to 7 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting Microsoft to report fourth quarter earnings of 75 cents a share on revenue of $20.73 billion. For the year, Microsoft reported earnings of $2.58 a share on revenue of $77.85 billion.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Don Clark commented, “The results showed how Microsoft, still a vastly profitable company, remains stymied in its efforts to adapt to a range of new computing platforms and approaches. Despite significant wagers on the Surface and overhauled versions of its Windows software, consumers have proved largely impervious to Microsoft’s products and massive marketing campaigns behind them.”

VentureBeat quoted Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, who said, “We know we have to do better and this is one reason we made the strategic and organizational changes last week. We are confident we are moving in the right direction.”