Microsoft is set to absorb a loss of $6.2 billion this quarter due to the impact of low returns from the 2007 purchase of aQuantive.

The marketing company aQuantive was purchased for around $6.3 billion which ranked as the largest ever acquisition at the time, in order to improve Microsoft’s online marketing capabilities.

A statement issues by Microsoft said: “the acquisition did not accelerate growth to the degree anticipated, contributing to the write down,".