Microsoft misses in Q4 2015 with restructuring penalties, lower phone and Office sales

Microsoft today reported that it brought in $22.2 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of its 2015 fiscal year, which ended on June 31. Analysts were expecting $22.06 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Meanwhile, Microsoft reported 40 cents in operating loss per share as a result of a $7.6 billion writedown related to the 2014 acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business, as well as a $780 million charge for the restructuring plan announced earlier this month, the company said in its press release about the earnings statement. Microsoft said it also faced a separate $160 million charge because of its earlier restructuring activity.

Altogether, Microsoft is delivering a $3.19 billion net loss — or a 40 cent loss per share — to shareholders. Revenue was down 5 percent year over year.

Microsoft stock was down more than 3 percent after the earnings release.

The declining PC market resulted in decreases for Office commercial and consumer revenue and Windows OEM and volume licensing revenue. Revenue for Microsoft’s Lumia and non-Lumia phones both fell, too.

This is all in stark contrast to Microsoft’s past four quarters, when the company has either met or beat expectations.

Despite that context, there are some bright spots for Microsoft to point to today. Commercial cloud revenue, for products like Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online, was up 88 percent year over year, growing by $832 million, with an annual run rate of $8 billion.

Surface revenue grew by 117 percent year over year, up to $888 million. And first-party video game revenue — think Minecraft — was up 62 percent, to $63 million. Speaking of games, Microsoft sold 1.4 million Xbox consoles, up year over from 1.1 million.

Microsoft made a couple of significant business deals in this final quarter of its 2015 fiscal year.

First, the company sold to alternative cab company Uber the cameras it used to collect mapping imagery, as well as a data center near Boulder, Colorado and the 100 engineers who worked on Bing maps.

Second, Microsoft offloaded to AOL the management and sales of display, mobile, and video ads on Microsoft properties like Outlook Mail, Xbox, and Skype in nine countries.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella also revealed a new mission for the company in an email to all employees.

The current quarter will be important for Microsoft. The company will formally release Windows 10 next week.