At the end of July 2012, representatives of Microsoft Corporation reported to the public about impressive cash losses. For the first time in a quarter of a century, the computer giant suffered quarterly losses. Their size amounted to about 500 million dollars.
For the second quarter of 2011, the net profit of the largest software maker was about $ 6 billion. Now for the same period, the company suffers losses. This news could not go unnoticed, because the shares of the corporation are traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The loss per share is now $ 0.06 compared with a profit of $ 0.7 in 2011.
Such sad performance in 2012, many experts associate with the extremely unsuccessful acquisition of aQuantive online advertising agency. Microsoft made this purchase in 2007. The cost of the agency then amounted to 6.3 billion dollars. In early July, the corporation announced the write-off of 6.2 billion from the activities of this agency. This amount will be used to cover the costs incurred as a result of failed investments. It turns out that the purchase amount almost coincided with the amount of write-offs.
Microsoft acquired this unfortunate agency for a reason. The company strove in every way to strengthen its position in the online advertising market. However, the acquisition did not live up to expectations. Not only that, the agency has become part of a very unsuccessful Microsoft policy on investing in the Internet sector. Analysts say that the computer giant suffered a crushing defeat in the fight with Google for the market of online advertising and search. Microsoft was not able to increase revenue from online advertising and compete in this regard with Google, which acquired the aQuantive company - DoubleClick.
Despite this, things are going well for Microsoft as a whole, if you do not take into account losses from an unsuccessful purchase. The company's revenue for the second quarter of 2012 increased by 4% and amounted to 18.06 billion compared to last year's 17.36 billion. But operating income fell from 6.2 billion to 192 million dollars.
