Later today, Microsoft is expected to report financial results for the fiscal second quarter that ended on December 31. As per analysts reached by Thomson Reuters, the results will show a decline in profits. The company will be sharing earnings of $0.71 on revenue of $26.33 billion, which is slightly lower than $0.78 per share profits from last year. Bloomberg survey, on the other hand, point to 75 cents a dollar share profits.
Despite that, Microsoft has a lot of things going for it. Several of its products including Office, Windows, and Exchange are used heavily across the world. The Enterprise sales alone account for more than 55 percent of the company’s revenue, more than consumer sales.
The company’s performance in its cloud-based services are also going to be interesting. Over the past few years, Microsoft has been trying to move away from one-time software sales to a subscription-based model for its core products. This model generates more revenue, and also helps combat piracy loss.
As for revenue, the company is expected to report revenue of $26.3 billion, compared to $24.5 billion from an year ago. The growth in revenue can be credited to Nokia’s acquisition, which brings more than $2 billion in quarterly revenue.
It will also be interesting to see how the company’s move to make select versions of Windows free for OEMs (both Windows Phone handsets, and desktop computers) will affect its revenue. While on one hand the company is losing money as OEMs don’t have to pay the license fees, it also results in selling more of its devices, with a greater potential for subscription sales.
Microsoft is set to announce earnings at 2:30pm PST today, just after the US stock markets close. We’ll have more on the earnings report after it’s released.
