Revenue in the quarter ended June 30 came in at US$18.06 billion, up 4 percent year-on-year but below the $18.13 billion expected by financial analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

The company posted a net loss of $492 million, or a loss of $0.06 per share, compared with net income of $5.87 billion, or $0.69 earnings per share, in 2011's fourth quarter.

The results were significantly affected by two one-time items the company had previously disclosed: a $540 million revenue deferral related to an upcoming upgrade program for its new Windows 8 OS; and a charge of $6.19 billion for the impairment of goodwill on its online services division.

The goodwill impairment is in recognition that its online services division will not grow as quickly as previously expected, an issue related mostly to the 2007 acquisition of aQuantive for $6.3 billion.

Excluding the impact of those two items, revenue would have been $18.59 billion and earnings per share would have been $0.73.