Microsoft on Tuesday said slowing sales and falling profits in the final quarter of 2022 as a dark economic outlook forced it to lay off 10,000 workers.
Washington state-based tech giant – owner of LinkedIn, Xbox and Windows — said total revenue grew only 2% between October and December, to $52.7 billion (about Rs 430,325), the slowest increase in six years.
Net profit hit $16.4 billion (about Rs 1,33,915 crore) in the quarter, down 12% year-on-year, according to the earnings report.
However, the results met or in some segments exceeded expectations, and Microsoft’s stock price jumped more than 4% in late trading after the results were announced.
Microsoft managing director Satya Nadella said last week he’s laid off about 5% of the company’s workforce, just days before injecting several billion dollars into OpenAI, the company behind the controversial chatbot. ChatGPT.
The job cuts are in line with similar cuts at other tech giants as companies reverse massive hiring during the pandemic as demand for tech products booms.
Nadella has said that ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence breakthroughs from research firm OpenAI will be integrated into Microsoft products including the Windows operating system, Office and the Bing search engine.
Microsoft is also trying to overcome mainstream Legal barriers to complete the acquisition of the video game giant Activating blizzard for $68.7 billion (approximately Rs 5,64,474).
US and EU regulators are highly skeptical of the purchase, arguing that it will give Microsoft’s Xbox console an unfair advantage over rivals like Sony’s PlayStation.
The team’s quarterly results are eagerly awaited by the market as they come closer to providing cloud computing services, which is Microsoft’s largest business and a focal point for the larger economy.
The company’s “intelligent cloud” business, which brings together servers and data analytics services, brought in $21.5 billion in the second quarter of the fiscal year, up 18 percent year-over-year. last.
The development of remote computing platforms, greenslower than usual at 31 percent, did the job.
