Microsoft Earnings Come Up Just Short (MSFT)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Windows_2Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) just posted earnings. The software and tech behemoth posted $0.46 EPS  and $15.8 in revenues. 

First Call’s estimates for the quarter are $0.47 EPS on $15.65 Billion in revenues. 

The company also gave guidance for next quarter of $0.47 to $0.48 EPS on $14.7 to $14.9 Billion in revenues, while estimates are $0.49 EPS on $15.06 Billion in revenues.

For Fiscal June-2009, the company is forecasting $2.12 to $2.18 EPS vs.$2.16 estimates on revenues of $67.3 to $68.1 Billion, compared toestimates of $2.16 EPS and $67.3 Billion in revenues.

The company also noted a 15% headcount cost increase based upon morehires.  It now records over 180 MILLION licenses sold for WindowsVista.  The company said revenue growth was driven by the 2007Microsoft Office system, server software, and Xbox 360 consoles andgames. 

CFO Chris Liddell noted, "…despite difficult economic conditions, wewill build…. and expect to deliver another year of double-digitrevenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2009."

Shares closed up 0.9% at $27.52 in regular trading but shares are downalmost 5% at $26.20 in the initial reaction in after-hours trading.

This may come up as a tad short on the earnings numbers, but if you trust the earnings projections you have the world’s software leading behemoth trading (based on $26.20 after-hours price of shares) at 12.5-times forward earnings.  That is the lowest forward P/E perhaps ever seen on this stock and something that value managers will be discussing tomorrow.

As a reminder, Bill Gates isn’t going to be on this call.

Jon C. Ogg
July 17, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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