Microsoft Corp. on Thursday topped Wall Street forecasts for quarterly
profit as the technology company signed up more businesses to its Azure
cloud computing services and Microsoft 365.
Azure's growth has propelled Microsoft to the No. 2 position in the
$15.6 billion cloud computing market, with a 14 percent share, behind
AWS's 32 percent, research firm Canalys estimated in February.
- For three months, the company's revenue increased by 16% to $ 26.8
billion.
- Net income for Microsoft increased by 35% to $ 7.4 billion, or $
0.95 per share.
- Analysts Thomson Reuters forecast revenue of $ 25.77 billion and
net profit of $ 0.85 per share.
- Significant growth in financial performance: Microsoft provided sales
of cloud solutions (Intelligent Cloud). The proceeds of this
direction increased by 17% and amounted to $ 7.9 billion. Azure
cloud platform sales increased by 93%; the company does not give
absolute figures.
- Demand for cloud servers is growing, as more and more organizations
are trying to reduce storage costs and transfer information to
third-party data centers.
- According to the research firm Canalys, in February, Azure occupied
14% of the cloud computing market, behind only Amazon Web Services
with a 32% share.
- Productivity and Business Processes, which includes office suite
Microsoft 365, grew 17% to $ 9 billion.
- Sales of Windows, Xbox, and Surface increased by 13%, to $ 9.9
billion.
Microsoft "refocused its efforts and catered to a productivity audience
with a Surface that is both a tablet and a PC," said Rebecca Wettemann,
an analyst with Nucleas Research. "Apple is still playing catch up to
that."