Microsoft said on Thursday that net profit in the second quarter rose 60 percent to US$6.66 billion on record-high revenue driven by demand for new Windows 7 operating system.
Microsoft reported that its revenue surge 14 percent to US$19.02 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended on Dec. 31.
“Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company,” chief financial officer Peter Klein said of the new personal computer operating system released in October by the US software giant.
The net income amounted to US$0.74 per share, up 57 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.
The milestone was hit with help from a one-time boost of US$1.71 billion that came from deferred revenue.
Microsoft said it has sold or licensed more than 60 million copies of Windows 7, which was launched with Windows Server 2008 R2 software in late October.
“This is a record quarter for Windows units,” Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner said. “We are thrilled by the consumer reception to Windows 7 and by business enthusiasm to adopt Windows 7.”
The consumer-oriented side of Microsoft’s technology empire drove the quarter’s strong showing, while businesses continued to be tight with spending, Klein said.
“With Windows 7 we have tremendous consumer momentum and a great product for the enterprise market when it recovers,” Microsoft general manager of investor relations Bill Koefoed said.
Software sales grew at double digit percentages in emerging markets while climbing “single digits” in mature markets, Microsoft said.
Klein predicted spending on information technology would rise this year.
“IT spending should improve from the recessionary levels of 2009,” Klein said. “We expect the business hardware refresh cycle to begin this year and continue gradually for several years.”
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said yesterday after US President Donald Trump criticized the nation’s chip dominance. Trump repeated claims on Thursday that Taiwan had taken the industry and he wanted it back in the US, saying he aimed to restore US chip manufacturing. National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) did not name Trump in a Facebook post, but referred to President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments on Friday that Taiwan would be a reliable partner in the