Microsoft just posted their earnings for last quarter. The result? $16.2 billion in revenue. A very strong number, easily beating what the Street was projecting. But just 10 days ago, Apple posted their revenues for this past quarter. The result there? $20.34 billion. Yep.

During the last round of earnings results in July, some people had been predicting that Apple would pass Microsoft in revenue (though, for the record, I wasn’t so sure). But sure enough, Microsoft stayed barely ahead of Apple by about $700 million. But as we noted at the time:

It seems quite likely that next quarter Apple will surpass Microsoft in revenue. Assuming that iPhone 4 sales are huge and that the iPad continues to grow, Apple’s momentum in revenue is simply too great for Microsoft to keep up with. Apple may or may not hit $20 billion in revenues next quarter (they’re projecting $18 billion, but they always low-ball that number so they can beat it).

And here we go. Not only did Apple hit that $20 billion revenue quarter, Microsoft’s quarter-to-quarter total only went up slightly (around $200 million). And so Apple zoomed right by them.

Naturally, it’s important to note that Microsoft still has a lead in profit — $5.41 billion to $4.31 billion — but that’s because one is mainly a software maker (huge margins), while the other is mainly a hardware maker (lower margins). If this trend continues, that will change soon shortly as well. Remember, it’s the holiday quarter now.

Meanwhile, in terms of market cap, Apple now holds a $52 billion lead (remember when there was still some doubt this would happen?). And Google is inching closer to Microsoft as well.

[photo: flickr/NASA]

0 0

1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6

Authors: MG Siegler

to know more click here