The global technology giant Microsoft Corporation has announced its quarterly profit and revenue report which has proved to be better-than-expected, marking a 10% jump in profit and beating analysts’ estimates. The company’s ever-growing Azure cloud computing services and Office 365 productivity suite have played a major role in this profitability.
Microsoft reported earnings of $1.13 per share on $30.09 billion in revenue, a 17.5 percent rise over a year ago that beats Wall Street expectations of $29.21 billion. Microsoft marked $110 billion in revenue for the year, increased by 14 percent from the previous year.
We had an incredible year, surpassing $100 billion in revenue as a result of our teams’ relentless focus on customer success and the trust customers are placing in Microsoft,” CEO Satya Nadella said. “Our early investments in the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge are paying off, and we will continue to expand our reach in large and growing markets with differentiated innovation.”
The company posted net profits of $8.8 billion, an increase of 35 percent over a year ago. The company showed $30.3 billion in net profits for the year. The flagship Azure cloud service showed a revenue growth of 89 percent in the current quarter.
That caps off our full Fiscal Year 2018 with:
$110.4 billion in revenue
Double digit revenue growth across all segments
$23 billion in commercial cloud revenue; Gross Margin expanding to 57%
Gaming – 1st $10+ billion revenue year
LinkedIn: > $5 billion in revenue— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 19, 2018
Azure accounts for 16 percent share of the international cloud infrastructure market, which makes it the second-biggest cloud services company after Amazon’s subsidiary Amazon Web Services.
“The combination of the cloud, which is a megatrend that’s going to last for years to come, and the execution, this is company that knows how to sell and be innovative – it’s hard to argue with anything here,” said Tom Taulli, InvestorPlace.com analyst.
Soon after Satya Nadella was appointed as the chief executive officer of Microsoft, the company’s shares have increased by 180 percent, driving the focus of the company on cloud computing apart from the PC software. Microsoft’s market valuation crossed $800 billion for the first time.
“This was another gem of a quarter from Microsoft as Nadella’s cloud vision is coming to fruit on the heels of massive Azure growth and secular tailwinds,” said Daniel Ives at research firm GBH Insights.
The revenue from the company’s LinkedIn business and job network increased by 37 percent from the previous quarter, whereas its Dynamics 365 online business application suite showed a 61 percent rise.
Revenue for the company’s More Personal Computing division, which includes its Windows PC business, Surface products and gaming teams increased by 17 percent to $10.8 billion over the previous year.
Some more facts as stated by Satya Nadela:
– There are 120 million monthly active users of Office 365 commercial.
– There are more than 530 million LinkedIn users.
– The usage of Azure service more than doubled this quarter and the revenue rose 90 percent.
– The user base of Dynamics 365 grew 40 percent annually.
– The active monthly devices of Windows 10 90 percent annually.