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Microsoft revenues up as PC market recovers

Soft games sales sole black spot

Microsoft has reported strong financial for its latest quarter, with all divisions showing growth apart from its gaming division.

Revenues for the quarter were $17.41bn, up six per cent on this time last year, and income grew 12 per cent over the same period to reach $6.37bn. Redmond reported it has also paid out $461m to settle some outstanding tax issues with the US tax authorities.

"We’re driving toward exciting launches across the entire company, while delivering strong financial results," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft, in a statement. "With the upcoming release of new Windows 8 PCs and tablets, the next version of Office, and a wide array of products and services for the enterprise and consumers, we will be delivering exceptional value to all our customers in the year ahead."

As usual, the top performing division was server and tools, which saw a 14 per cent rise in revenues as SQL Server sold well and revenues from Systems Center rose 20 per cent – which bodes well for the new version announced on Tuesday.

Last quarter Microsoft reported slowing sales in the Windows division, and blamed the effects of the Thailand flooding for slowing PC sales growth. The knock-on effects of Mother Nature seem to have ended, with the division reporting revenues up 4 per cent on the year.

The business division saw revenues grow 9 per cent to $5.81bn, with Dynamics CRM revenue up by nearly a third on the year. The loss-making online services division – aka Bing and its ilk – saw revenues grow 6 per cent.

The worst performer was Redmond's entertainment and service division, which had been riding high on sales of Xbox and Kinect systems. Revenues plunged 16 per cent to $1.63bn. The Xbox is still the top selling US console, but suffered poor sales in the post-Christmas market, along with most of the competition. ®

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