Microsoft boosted by intelligent cloud growth and Surface sales

The Windows Phone continues to slide, falling 40% in over a year, even though they have launches the Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950 XL. Windows revenue closely tracks sales of personal computers, which fell 10.6% globally in the December quarter from a year earlier, according to research firm IDC. We’ll look at each more closely to see how the company fared.

Intelligent Cloud (IC), which includes service revenue and Enterprise Services: $6.4 billion compared to $5.9 billion in the last quarter. Office 365 revenue was up 5% year on year, while Office 365 had 70% revenue growth year on year. The company says its Azure revenue grew 140% overall in constant currency, while its Azure premium services revenue tripled compared to this time a year ago.

Excluding items, the company earned 78 cents USA per share.

Neverthless, Microsoft shared jumped more than 8 per cent in after-hours trading. In the same quarter previous year, Microsoft posted earnings per share of $0.71, revenue of $26.5 billion and net income of $5.86 billion.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has put cloud computing at the center of the tech giant’s strategy as growth slows in its traditional software business.

Cloud services are going so well for Microsoft that Business Insider suggests it is growing faster than Amazon’s reported 127% in revenue gain.

Microsoft reports in three segments, the largest being More Personal Computing, which is the division that produces the core Windows operating system and the Xbox video gaming system. “Businesses are also piloting Windows 10, which will drive deployments beyond 200 million active devices”, added Nadella.

Microsoft’s devices business saw mixed results as Surface revenue increased 29 percent in constant currency, while phone revenue fell by almost half.

Microsoft did not offer guidance in its press release, but said that it would provide guidance during its conference call later this afternoon.

Windows OEM revenue fell 5 percent in constant currency. This part of the company makes Azure plus other businesses like Office 365 and it is up 15 percent from the $8.2 billion revenue it estimated last quarter.