Microsoft Makes $80 Billion A Year

Sites include Microsoft.com . Published on January 28th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Microsoft’s bid to remain the world’s biggest software company seems to be on track with the release of its latest revenue figures. The company, which was formerly run by founder Bill Gates, reported 2012 Q2 earnings of just over $20.9 billion. This figure represents a sizable 5% increase on Q2 revenue figures for the previous year, and sets Microsoft on course to make over $80 billion in the next 12 months.

This level of growth and revenue generation is of course nothing short of spectacular, especially given the state of the world economy. Some countries for instance don’t even make a quarter of this amount for their GDP.

Revenue figures don’t tell the full story however, and the software maker saw a slight drop in net income over last year’s figures. In Q2 of 2012, Microsoft recorded net income of $7.99 billion—down from the $8.17 billion recorded a year earlier. And its online division aka Bing is still haemorrhaging money. Bing lost another $458 million over the period and data shows that other areas of the Microsoft Empire are waning too. Most noticeably, figures for Xbox and the Windows Operating System were also down.

Despite declining numbers in some areas Microsoft still manage to beat Wall Street expectations; something which I am sure Gates will be pleased to see.