Microsoft revenues jump 19% as 'digital adoption' accelerates
Despite the strong growth, shares of Microsoft fell nearly 4% in after-hours trading Tuesday
Cloud business fuels earnings for big tech
Windows Central Executive Editor Daniel Rubino and Global X Funds SVP Jay Jacobs discuss cloud business growing under big tech.
Microsoft's revenue growth blew past Wall Street expectations on Tuesday, jumping 19% in the company's fiscal third quarter to $41.7 billion, the largest quarterly increase since 2018.
The growth was fueled primarily by the company's commercial cloud products, which generated $17.7 billion of total revenue, up 33% from a year earlier. Commercial bookings grew 33% year-over-year following an increase in the number of large, long-term Azure contracts.
Revenue from Azure, the tech giant's flagship cloud computing product, rose 50 percent. The company does not provide raw numbers for Azure performance, unlike competitors Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
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Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment, which includes Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, GitHub and Enterprise Services, accounted for $15.12 billion of total revenue, up 23% year over year.
As for the Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes Office, Dynamics and Linkedin, revenue increased 15% year-over-year to $13.55 billion. Office 365 commercial products grew 22% year-over-year as more corporate customers embraced the cloud and LinkedIn revenue grew 25% year-over-year.
In addition, revenue in the More Personal Computing Unit, which includes Windows, Xbox, Surface and search, increased 19% year-over-year to $13 billion. Microsoft’s sales of Windows licenses to PC makers were up 10% year-over-year, while Xbox content and services revenue increased by 34% year-over-year, Surface revenue increased by 12% year-over-year, and search advertising revenue grew 17% year-over-year.
"Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down. They’re accelerating, and it’s just the beginning," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. "We are building the cloud for the next decade, expanding our addressable market and innovating across every layer of the tech stack to help our customers be resilient and transform."
Nadella added during the company's earnings call that daily active users of Microsoft Teams grew to 145 million, compared to 115 million in the previous quarter.
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Microsoft reported net income of $15.46 billion, or $2.03 per share, which included a $620 million tax benefit. Without the tax gain, net income came in at $14.8 billion, or $1.95 per share. The company's overall operating margin came in at 40.9%, down from 41.6%.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP. | 426.89 | +1.69 | +0.40% |
Despite the strong growth, shares of Microsoft fell nearly 4% in after-hours trading Tuesday.