Technology shares spiked higher in after-hours trading Tuesday, after a string of bellwether firms posted quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street expectations.
Leading the parade was the perennially profitable Microsoft. The company posted earnings that beat analyst expectations by 2 cents a share, which caused its stock to rise more than $1 a share in late trading.
Intel and Texas Instruments rounded out the afternoon, reporting better-than-expected results for the first quarter of 2003.
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Microsoft profitable, as usual: Microsoft posted quarterly earnings above expectations on higher revenue, but issued a cautious outlook amid a persistent slump in information-technology spending.
In an earnings report released Tuesday afternoon, Microsoft (MSFT) posted a net profit of $2.79 billion, or 26 cents per share, for its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, compared with $2.74 billion, or 25 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts had forecast a profit of 24 cents per share.
Revenues rose to $7.84 billion from $7.25 billion a year earlier, compared with the $7.75 billion projected by analysts polled by Thomson First Call.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, forecast that revenues for the next fiscal year ending in June 2004 would be between $33.1 billion and $33.8 billion, short of the average analyst forecast of $34.9 billion as tracked by Multex.
The company also forecast full-year net earnings for the next fiscal year of between $1.04 and $1.06 per share, also short of the Wall Street expectation of $1.08 per share.
For the current fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft forecast earnings per share of 23 cents to 24 cents on revenue of $7.8 billion to $7.9 billion, in line with or slightly below the average Wall Street analyst forecast.
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Intel up on earnings: Shares of Intel surged in after-hours trading Tuesday after the chipmaker announced first-quarter earnings that came in slightly ahead of analyst expectations.
Net income for the first quarter was $915 million, or 14 cents per share, compared with $936 million, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier, excluding one-time items. Revenue was $6.75 billion, compared with $6.78 billion a year earlier.
Analysts, on average, had expected Intel (INTC) to post earnings of 12 cents per share, with forecasts ranging between 11 cents and 13 cents. Last month, Intel narrowed its revenue forecast range to between $6.6 billion and $6.8 billion.
Craig Barrett, Intel's chief executive officer, described the quarterly results as "solid." He said Intel's computing-related business performed better than expected during the quarter, while its flash memory business came in below expectations. Intel said it expects sales to total between $6.4 billion and $7 billion in the second quarter of this year.
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TI posts a profit: Texas Instruments, the top maker of semiconductors for cell phones, on Tuesday swung to a first-quarter profit from a year-ago loss, as revenues rose 20 percent and the company projected a second-quarter profit.
The Dallas-based chipmaker posted net income of $117 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $38 million, or 2 cents a share, a year earlier. The company had forecast first-quarter earnings of about 6 cents per share.
Revenues were $2.19 billion, compared with $1.83 billion a year earlier. Texas Instruments (TXN) had forecast revenues would remain about even with fourth-quarter revenues of $2.15 billion.
Texas Instruments said it expects current second-quarter revenues to rise about 7 percent from the first quarter, and it expects second-quarter earnings per share to be about 8 cents, "plus or minus a few cents."
(Reuters contributed to this report.)
