Investors sent Microsoft’s share price down more than 11 percent, to about $31.40, in trading this morning following the company’s rocky earnings report yesterday, which included a $900 million charge on weak sales of the company’s Surface RT tablet.
Analysts including Raymond James and Cowen downgraded Microsoft’s shares this morning, following the earnings report.
The numbers reflected ongoing weakness in Microsoft’s Windows business. The company reported earnings of 59 cents a share, when including the 7 cent charge for the Surface RT. Adjusting for that charge, the company’s earnings would have been 66 cents per share — still significantly lower than the 75 cents that Wall Street analysts had been expecting in advance of the report.
Amy Hood, the company’s new chief financial officer, asked investors for patience on a conference call yesterday.
“This quarter our Windows business declined as the device market continued to evolve beyond the traditional PC,” she said. “We are working to transition the business into this modern era of computing taking advantage of the new scenarios enabled our Windows 8. As we said before, given the complexity of the ecosystem, this journey will take time, but we continue to make incremental progress.”
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