The world’s largest software company Microsoft reported 175m licence sales of Windows 7 during the fourth quarter and strong demand for Office 10, resulting in a resounding Q4 with revenues up 22pc year-on-year to US$16.04bn.
Operating income for the fourth quarter was US$5.9bn, up 49pc, and the company turned in a net profit of US$4.5bn, up 48pc on last year.
“This quarter’s record revenue reflects the breadth of our offerings and our continued product momentum,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer.
“The revenue growth, combined with our ongoing cost discipline, helped us achieve another quarter of margin expansion.”
Product momentum continued during the quarter with the successful launch of Office 2010 and strong performance from existing products including Windows 7, which has sold more than 175 million licences to date, Windows Server, Xbox and Bing, which achieved its 13th consecutive month of share gain.
“We saw strong sales execution across all of our businesses, particularly in the enterprise with Windows 7 and Office 2010,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer.
“Our transition to cloud services is well under way with offerings like Windows Azure and our Business Productivity Online Services, and we look forward to continuing our product momentum this fall with the upcoming launches of Windows Phone 7 and Xbox Kinect.”
For the year ended 30 June 2010, Microsoft reported record revenue of US$62.48bn, a 7pc increase from the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the year were US$24.10bn, US$18.76bn and US$2.10, which represented increases of 18pc, 29pc and 30pc, respectively.
