Microsoft has said that strong demand over Christmas and sales to large businesses were responsible for a 30 per cent increase in second quarter revenues to $16.37 billion (€11.16 billion). John Collinsreports.
In the three months to the end of December last, the world's largest software company made a pretax profit of $6.82 billion, up from $3.8 billion a year ago.
Flying in the face of predictions of a global slowdown in technology spending this year, Microsoft raised its guidance for its full financial year.
The Washington-based company said it expected its revenues for the full year to the end of June to be in the range of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion, with operating income of between $24.2 billion and $24.4 billion. Last year Microsoft had revenues of $51.12 billion.
Despite the record quarterly revenue and improved forecast, Microsoft's stock was down just less than 0.1 per cent in lunchtime trading in New York yesterday.
The maker of Windows said that Vista, the latest version of its operating system, had sold more than 100 million copies, despite negative reviews in some quarters.
Microsoft said total sales of the Xbox 360 games console had reached 17.7 million units by year end - up 70 per cent from 12 months previously.
Sales to business customers were up 23 per cent, which the company said were helped by the introduction of new versions of its Office, SharePoint and Exchange programs launched last November.
Microsoft directly employs over 1,200 staff at its Irish operations, with another 500 contractors working at its sites through third parties.
