Dhe technology industry continues to deliver bad news. The software provider Microsoft and the Alphabet holding company around the Internet group Google presented slightly worse than expected business results on Tuesday after the stock market closed. The stock market reaction was initially limited, possibly because worse was feared. Microsoft’s share price was slightly down in after-hours trading, and Alphabet shares even gained more than 2 percent in value.
Microsoft reported revenue growth of 12 percent to $51.9 billion for the final quarter of fiscal year 2021/2022, which ended on June 30. Analysts had expected an average of $ 52.4 billion. Net income was $16.7 billion, up 2 percent, and earnings per share of $2.23 were 6 cents lower than expected.
The software group had already lowered the bar a little at the beginning of June and revised its forecasts slightly downwards due to negative currency effects. In addition, the company now addressed a number of other burdens in its quarterly report: For example, the advertising sales that Microsoft achieved with its career platform Linkedin and its search engine Bing were 100 million dollars lower than expected. Production interruptions in China due to corona restrictions would have cost more than 300 million dollars in sales in the Windows operating system business. In addition, layoffs would have resulted in severance expenses of more than $100 million. Microsoft recently confirmed that it had cut a “small number” of jobs. According to media reports, less than one percent of the approximately 180,000 employees are affected.
Cloud computing is growing strongly at Microsoft
In the cloud computing business, which is being observed particularly closely by analysts, there was rapid growth again, but this was somewhat lower than expected. Here, the Azure platform is one of Microsoft’s most important products, and its sales increased by 40 percent. Alphabet grew its revenue 13 percent to $69.7 billion last quarter, slightly below expectations. Net income fell 14 percent to $16.0 billion, and earnings per share of $1.21 were 7 cents lower than expected.
Google’s parent company had already disappointed with its figures for the first quarter. He also complains about negative currency effects. The biggest weakness was the YouTube video site, which depends on advertising revenue. In the second quarter, their growth slowed further, this time sales rose only 5 percent to $ 7.3 billion. Like Microsoft, Alphabet’s cloud computing business continues to be a growth driver, with sales up 36 percent this time to $6.3 billion.
Alphabet is also paying more attention to its costs at the moment. CEO Sundar Pichai wrote to his employees a few weeks ago that the group wanted to slow down the pace of recruitment for the rest of the year. “We are not immune to economic headwinds.” Last week, the short message service Twitter and Snap, the parent company of the social network Snapchat, presented disappointing quarterly figures. Both companies do their business primarily with online advertising. Twitter reported a surprise drop in revenue, attributing it to the difficult environment in the advertising industry and the uncertainty surrounding the company’s agreed sale to Elon Musk. Snap posted the lowest revenue growth since its IPO five years ago. Snap’s stock price is down nearly 80 percent year-to-date.
In the coming days, the Facebook parent company Meta, the online retailer Amazon.com and the electronics group Apple will also present quarterly results.
