Microsoft Profit Growth Drops Slightly

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker said its netincome for the latest quarter fell slightly from a year ago.

Net income was $6.63 billion, or 77 cents a share, compared with $6.66 billion, or 74 cents, a year earlier, Microsoft said in a statement.

Sales rose 4.9 percent to $20 billion. The results beat the average projections of 68-cents in profit and $19.1 billion in sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Redmond, Washington-based sold 8 million Kinect devices, more than twice its initial forecast.

“They beat on revenue and profit and showed some nice expense control,” said Katherine Egbert, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in San Francisco. “The business side is good and then Kinect was good.”