Microsoft Corp said its quarterly revenue fell from the previous year for the first time in its 23-year history as a public company, and its profit fell more sharply than Wall Street was expecting.
The shortfall illustrated the toll the recession has taken on the world's largest software maker, even though Microsoft remains one of the richest and most profitable companies. In January, Microsoft said it needed to resort to its first mass layoffs, cutting 5,000 jobs, and yesterday it announced it would do away with merit pay increases for employees in the next fiscal year.
Microsoft also did not issue earnings guidance for the rest of the year, and its earnings statement offered no hope for a rebound in the current quarter.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said that in its fiscal third-quarter, which ended March 31, profit dropped 32 per cent to $2.98 billion, or 33 cents per share. In the same quarter of 2008, Microsoft earned $4.39 billion, or 47 cents per share.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a stronger profit of 39 cents per share in the most recent quarter.
Microsoft's profit included a $290 million charge for severance from some of the layoffs announced in January. The software maker also wrote down $420 million related to investments that lost value.
