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oodles2do on 24 April 2015
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kowenicki said:
oodles2do said:

This is ridiculously confusing. I found this website, which states that the quarters are each just a 1/3 of the calender year:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quarter.asp

Then Wiki says that in the US the quarters are:

  • 1st quarter: 1 October 2014 – 31 December 2014
  • 2nd quarter: 1 January 2015 – 31 March 2015
  • 3rd quarter: 1 April 2015 – 30 June 2015
  • 4th quarter: 1 July 2015 – 30 September 2015
Wiki also says than a Japanese Fiscal year is from 1st April to the follow 31 March. Meaning that April - June would be Q1.
But this is about MS so their prediction of 1.5 to 1.6B is actually for Q3.


A company can choose its own year end and thus the dates of its quarters.  MS Q4 is April to June.  Thats all there is to it.  It isnt even a little bit confusing, you are making it far mnore complicated than it is.  I have a company and my year end is Dec 31st, so my Q4 is actually Q4. 


Yeah, I've got my head around it now, I was just baffled at what I thought was MS saying they'd make more money elsewhere in the year compared to the holiday quarter. But I was wrong, that's their Q1 which isn't mentioned. It would make it much easier if everyone used the same quarter dates, like everyone uses the same calender.