Microsoft Corporation Earnings 1QFY16

The software giant has reported mixed earnings for the first quarter of 2016 and analysts expect it to grow further in the year

Microsoft Corporation was recently seen releasing its earnings for the first quarter of the new fiscal year right after which the analysts in the industry turned out to have all kinds of different opinions on how the giant could make sales in the future. One of such analysts is from equity firm Argus Research, and they have decided to present the software company with a ‘hold’ rating, which has just been reiterated by the firm. Previously the take of the analysts of the firm was almost the same and the investors and shareholders were advised to keep their shares on the hold for the time period.

Following the earnings release, it looks like the Microsoft’s software business has huge aims to attain but might not be able to do in the last quarter at least. The sales of its cloud computing services which includes Office 365 along with the OEM software were much lower than the figures that were actually expected out of the giant by the analysts in the market.

However, on the other side of the picture, the tech company has gone up on the revenue department in which it has reported non-GAAP earnings per share of around $0.67 which actually turned out to be beat estimations which were made at a figure of $0.58. As for the earnings that were reported in totality, the giant managed to report a revenue of $21.6 billion, which was very close to the actual estimation of $21 billion which was made by the analysts.

Analysts at Argus are of the opinion that these earnings show a positive end for the Microsoft business and it looks like the new financial year is going to be a challenge for Satya Nadella, the CEO of the company, as he is expected to experience some important product releases during his tenure which could either turn out to be a success or a struggle for the giant.

The consensus estimations made for the Microsoft stock show that around 23 equity giants have presented the company with a ‘buy’ rating whereas around 13 firms believe the stock deserves a ‘hold’ rating.