Microsoft posts 3% annual revenue decline
Software giant blames market weakness as profit tumbles by 18%
Microsoft has reported its fiscal 2009 financial results, with the headline news that numbers are, as expected, down across the board.
The corporation posted total revenues of USD 58.44 billion, down 3 per cent on the previous year, while profit was also down by 18 per cent to USD 14.57 billion.
Diluted earnings per share fell by 13 per cent to USD 1.62 as the final quarter of the fiscal year - the three months to the end of June - was hit hard.
In those three months revenue dropped year-on-year by 17 per cent to USD 13.10 billion, while profit dropped 29 per cent to USD 3.05 billion and EPS fell 26 per cent to 34 cents.
"Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over USD 750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter."
And Kevin Turner, COO, added: "While economic conditions presented challenges this year, we maintained our focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money. I am very excited by the wave of product and services innovations being delivered in this next fiscal year."
Among those new products set to ship in the next twelve months is the latest edition of the company's operating system, Windows 7, which Interactive Entertainment VP Chris Lewis previously told GamesIndustry.biz would be "great for games".