Microsoft Corp on Tuesday said it posted a profit of US$3.1 billion in the just-ended quarter, swinging into the black a year after hefty charges from writing off mobile phone assets.
The profit in the tech giant’s fourth fiscal quarter was nearly identical to the loss from a year earlier, when it took charges of more than US$7 billion to reflect the lower value of the Nokia Oyj mobile phone division it had acquired.
Revenue dipped to US$20.6 billion from US$22.2 billion in the same period last year.
Overall, the results were better than most analysts’ forecasts and sparked an after-hours gain of more than 3 percent for the company, which is seeking to shift its emphasis to cope with declining sales of PCs.
Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella is trying to reduce the firm’s dependence on software sales and boost its role in services and cloud computing, with some contributions from its Xbox gaming platform and Surface tablets.
Nadella said in a statement that “the Microsoft Cloud is seeing significant customer momentum and we’re well positioned to reach new opportunities in the year ahead.”
Last month, Microsoft announced a US$26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp, the biggest-ever deal for a social media company, which is expected to help the tech giant increase its cloud offerings for business.
Microsoft closed out its fiscal year with a 38 percent rise in profit to US$16.8 billion.
In related news, German software giant SAP SE yesterday confirmed its full-year targets after strong growth in its cloud business propelled earnings and sales in the second quarter.
SAP said in a statement that its net profit soared by 73 percent to 813 million euros (US$893.24 million) in the April-to-June quarter.
The rise was partly attributable to the fact that the year-earlier figure had included restructuring costs.
However, the increase also reflected a strong operating performance with strong demand for its cloud products pushing up overall revenues by 5.4 percent to 5.237 billion euros.
SAP said that revenues in its cloud business increased by 30 percent to 720 million euros.
SAP chief executive officer Bill McDermott said the firm was not expecting any impact on its business from Britain’s decision to leave the EU, adding that he “confidently” confirmed the group’s full-year targets.
SAP is penciling in cloud revenues of 2.95 billion euros to 3.05 billion euros for the full year and group operating profit of 6.4 billion euros to 6.7 billion euros.
Last year, SAP booked annual cloud revenues of 2.3 billion euros and total group operating profit of 6.35 billion euros.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the