People love to knock Microsoft. Kevin O’Leary, host of BNN’s Squeeze Play recently called its Vista operating system “a piece of junk”. That acrid sentiment is shared by many. Despite reliability issues and problems over compatibility with things like printers, Microsoft saw Windows’ sales increase 25% year-over-year. The quarterly report Microsoft unloaded late yesterday was stunning. On revenue, Microsoft beat estimates by 1.4 billion. Now that’s what I call “blowing away the street”.
Analyst David Garrity of Dinnosaur Securities told me today Microsoft executed almost to perfection in every single business category. Its games division, traditionally its weakest sector made its first profit in 4 years. And Microsoft could only count one week of Halo 3 sales ($300M) which fell in the last quarter. Obviously Halo 3 will bring in hundreds of millions more in sales in the months to come and the full effect on the top line will be felt in upcoming quarters.
Microsoft’s stock leaped in After Hours trading, surged in the pre-market and sustained those gains in the regular session. Suddenly everyone loves Microsoft again. Garrity says this earnings statement proves Microsoft can grow despite its size.
No comments:
Post a Comment