Sales and profits up at Microsoft
 

Microsoft has thanked strong sales of personal computers for a quarterly rise in both sales and profits.
Reporting its results for the fourth quarter, it saw net profits increase to $2.7bn (£1.5bn) from the $1.6bn (£867m) for the same period last year.

Sales revenue in turn was up from $8.1bn to $9.3bn, said the software giant.

Yet on Wall Street, where Microsoft's shares fell slightly in after-hours Thursday trading, analysts had been expecting yet higher profits.

They had been predicting profits of 29p a share rather than the 25p which $2.7bn represents.

Microsoft's quarterly results come a day after it announced plans to return more than $75bn (£40.5bn) in cash to shareholders over the next four years, starting with a one-off dividend worth $32bn, or $3 a share, in December this year.

For its coming fiscal year Microsoft now expects to see sales revenue of $38.4bn to $38.8bn, up from previous guidance of $37.8bn and $38.2bn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3918721.stm