Microsoft Posts $5.24 Billion Net Profit For Q3 Of 2013

Microsoft just announced its financial performance for Q3 of 2013 and the results are looking reasonably good. Microsoft announced a revenue of $18.53 billion, a gross margin of $13.42 billion, an operating income of $6.33 billion and a net income of $5.24 billion which is $0.62 per share. Microsoft claims these results reflect the deferral of $113 million of Windows 8.1 pre-sales revenue (meaning this won’t show up until the Q4 2013 results).

Compared to the same period last year (Q3 2012) Microsoft claims the following:

• Devices and Consumer revenue grew 4% to $7.46 billion.
• Windows OEM revenue declined 7%
• Windows Pro revenue grew for the second consecutive quarter
• Surface revenue grew to $400 million (with sequential growth in revenue and units sold over the prior quarter)
• Search advertising revenue grew 47% driven by an increase in revenue per search and volume
• Commercial revenue grew 10% to $11.20 billion
• SQL Server revenue grew double-digits, with SQL Server Premium revenue growing more than 30%
  
• Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange, our productivity server offerings, collectively grew double-digits
• Commercial cloud revenue grew 103%.

Microsoft’s outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer commented on Microsoft’s successes:

“Our devices and services transformation is progressing and we are launching a wide range of compelling products and experiences this fall for both business and consumers,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Our new commercial services will help us continue to outgrow the enterprise market, and we are seeing lots of consumer excitement for Xbox One, Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, and the full spectrum of Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone devices.”

The sell-off of last generation Surface inventory, the launch of Windows 8.1, the growing popularity of Windows Phone (driven by the Nokia handset takeover), the launch of the Xbox One and the launch of the new second generation Surface tablets are all occurring in Q4 of this year. As a result when Microsoft next posts its Q4 2013 figures in late January of 2014 we should expect to see some really impressive numbers.

Image courtesy of Microsoft