Shares of Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) gained almost 7% after the company announced its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2018. It posted diluted earnings per share of 84 cents beating analysts' expectations by 12 cents.
Revenue of $24.54 billion could beat expectations by $980 million. Further, revenue growth was 11.9% year over year. By segment, sales in its productivity and business processes unit, which includes Office products, inched up 28% while its intelligent cloud business rose 14%. Further, operating income was $7.7 billion, registering an increase of 15%.
“This quarter we exceeded $20 billion in commercial cloud ARR, outpacing the goal we set just over two years ago,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft. “Our results reflect accelerating innovation and increased usage and engagement across our businesses as customers continue to choose Microsoft to help them transform.”
Mattel Inc.'s (MAT, Financial)Â shares lost about 12% after the company reported third-quarter EPS of 9 cents, short analyst estimates by 0.5 cents per share. Further, revenue was down by 13.3% year over year. The company’s revenue of $1.56 billion also missed consensus by $260 million.
Despite the decline in revenues, CEO Margo Georgiadis said, "We are making strong progress against our transformation plan, which we believe will deliver step change revenue growth and profitability. To accelerate progress toward these goals, with our new leadership team in place, we are taking bold steps to simplify our business and right size our cost structure in alignment with our strategy."
Moreover, the board of directors suspended its quarterly dividend beginning in the fourth quarter in order to gain financial flexibility, strengthen the balance sheet and increase strategic investments. An additional liquidity of $50 million per quarter is expected.
Shares of Expedia Inc. (EXPE, Financial) fell more than 17% on the back of the company announcing third-quarter results. It posted EPS of $2.51 on revenue of $2.97 billion. Both figures beat analysts' expectations – by 11 cents and $10 million. Also, revenue growth was up 15.1% year over year.
Finally, shares of Baidu Inc. (BIDU, Financial) lost about 8.5% despite EPS of $3.89 that beat expectations by $1.85. Revenue of $3.53 billion missed by $30 million and registered a 27.9% growth year over year.
Robin Li, Baidu's co-founder and CEO, said, "On strengthening our mobile foundation, our strategy to leverage Baidu's leading AI technologies to increase the user scale and user stickiness of Mobile Baidu is showing measurable results. On our AI initiatives, we continue to focus on developing platforms for smart devices and autonomous driving markets as well as leveraging AI into vertical sectors, such as financial services."
Disclosure: The author holds no position in any stocks mentioned.
