Microsoft Corporation (
MSFT)
Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
July 23, 2009 5:30 p.m. ET
Executives
Bill Koefoed - General Manager, Investor Relations
Christopher P. Liddell - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Analysts
Adam Holt - Morgan Stanley
Brent Thill - Citigroup
Sarah Friar - Goldman Sachs
Brad Reback – Oppenheimer & Co.
Brendan Barnicle - Pacific Crest Securities
Philip Winslow - Credit Suisse
Todd Raker - Deutsche Bank
Kash Rangan – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
John DiFucci – JPMorgan
Tim Klasell - Thomas Weisel Partners
Katherine Egbert – Jefferies & Co.
Sandeep Aggarwal - Collins Stewart LLC
Robert Breza - RBC Capital Markets
Presentation
Operator
Welcome to the Microsoft fourth quarter 2009 fiscal year conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. During the question-and-answer session, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Today’s call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bill Koefoed, General Manager, Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Bill Koefoed
Thank you, Barb and thanks everyone for joining us today for our fourth quarter earnings call. As usual, here with me are Chris Liddell, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Frank Brod, Corporate Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and John Seethoff, Deputy General Counsel.
Today, Chris will start with takeaways for the fourth quarter and our 2009 fiscal year. Then, I will get into the details of our fourth quarter and then hand it back to Chris, who will discuss our business outlook. After that, we’ll take your questions.
Our earnings release today includes an addendum of financial highlights which contains more detailed information about revenue, operating expenses, and other items. We have also posted our quarterly financial summary slide deck, which is intended to follow the flow of our prepared remarks, as well as provide a reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures that we will talk about today. You can find these documents at the Investor Relations website at www.microsoft.com/msft.
Today’s call will be webcast live and recorded. If you decide to ask a question, it will be included in both our live transmission as well as any future use of the recording. You can replay the call at the Microsoft Investor Relations website until July 23, 2010.
This conference call is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this report or any portion of it, without the express permission of Microsoft may result in civil and criminal penalties.
We will be making statements during this call that are forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in today’s earnings press release, in the comments made during this conference call, and in the risk factors section of our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statement.
Okay, now let’s hear from Chris.
Christopher P. Liddell
Thanks, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. The fourth quarter marks the end of one of the most difficult but in some ways encouraging fiscal years in the company’s history. Our absolute results were disappointing due to the poor macroeconomic environment and as you’ve seen, revenue in the fourth quarter was down 17% year over year and down 3% for the full year.
However, I do feel better about our relative performance in fiscal 2009 than I did in fiscal 2008. We actually executed much better than in preceding years across almost all aspects of our business, we had great product shipments, strong sales execution, and a new level of internal discipline shown by the speed and efficiency with which we cut costs.
So in my mind, we are a stronger company than we were a year ago. However, the economy continues to be challenging and we need to lift our game to another level in fiscal 2010.
