Kinect helps Microsoft to record quarter

Microsoft has announced the results for its fiscal second quarter - the three month period ending December 31, 2010 - with record revenue and EPS on the board.

In total the software giant pulled in $19.95 billion in overall revenue, up $931 million on the same period in 2009, with profits stacking up to $6.63 billion.

Earnings per share was also a record figure, weighing in at 77 cents - with results propelled by higher than expected sales of Kinect, while Windows 7 license number passed the 300 million mark.

The Xbox 360's new motion controller - which sold 8 million units in its first 60 days on sale - helped the corporation's Entertainment & Devices division to grow by 55 per cent year-on-year to post revenues of $3.7 billion and an operating income of $680 million.

Those figures set it as the fourth-biggest division by revenue, behind Business (at $6.032 billion), Windows and Windows Live (at $5.054 billion) and Server and Tools (at $4.390 billion).

"We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday line-up of products, including the launch of Kinect," said Peter Klein, CFO at Microsoft. "The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations.

"The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth."

Other quarter highlights included the launch of Windows Phone 7 and the integration of Bing into Yahoo search in the US and Canada.

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