Update: Microsoft beats forecasts for Q2

Microsoft beat Wall Street expectations for both revenue and EPS (earnings per share) for its fiscal 2008 second quarter, attributing its strong quarter to sales of core client products, such as Windows Vista and Office 2007, as well as Exchange and SharePoint server software.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Microsoft reported revenue of $16.37 billion, an increase of 30 percent year over year and a number that solidly beat the $15.95 billion in revenue that Thomson Financial analysts had estimated. Last year for the same period, Microsoft reported $12.54 billion in revenue.

Diluted earnings per share were $0.50, an increase of 92 percent over the $0.27 in EPS reported last year, and $0.04 higher than Thomson Financial estimates of $0.46. Operating income for the quarter was $6.48 billion, an increase of 92 percent from the $3.47 billion reported for the same period last year.

Microsoft's year-over-year percentage growth is higher than normal due to a deferral of $1.64 billion in revenue and operating income, as well as $0.11 of diluted earnings per share from the second to the third quarter of fiscal 2007. This deferred revenue contributed to the higher-than-average second-quarter percentage growth. Without these deferrals, second-quarter growth rates for revenue, operating income and earnings per share would be 15 percent, 27 percent and 32 percent, respectively, for the quarter reported Thursday.

Ahead of Microsoft's announcement, analysts had expected the company to report a strong quarter even among economic uncertainty and fears that the U.S. economy is entering a recession.

Microsoft's client business, on sales of Windows Vista, was especially strong in the quarter, with $4.34 billion in revenue compared to $2.59 billion in revenue a year ago. According to Microsoft, its client business has grown 20 percent on average since Windows Vista was made available nearly a year ago, and the company believes Vista began hitting its stride for adoption among customers and partners in the second quarter. According to Microsoft, it has sold more than 100 million licenses for Vista.

Looking ahead to the next quarter, which ends March 31, Microsoft said Thursday that it expects revenue in the range of $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion; operating income in the range of $5.6 billion to $5.7 billion; and diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.43 to $0.45.

For the full fiscal year ending June 30, Microsoft expects revenue in the range of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion; operating income in the range of $24.2 billion to $24.4 billion; and diluted EPS in the range of $1.85 to $1.88.

On a conference call to discuss the results, CFO Chris Liddell noted that 60 percent of Microsoft's revenue in the second quarter came from outside the U.S. and said emerging markets are becoming increasingly important to the company's revenue. In the past several years, Microsoft has made significant investments in selling its technology in developing countries like India, Brazil, and China.

Microsoft's online business, which analysts are watching closely, grew 38 percent in the quarter to $863 million in revenue, with $154 million of that being attributed to Microsoft's $6 billion purchase of digital media services firm aQuantive last year. Online advertising revenue grew 38 percent.