Strong cloud growth helps Microsoft deliver healthy quarter

Microsoft has reported strong quarterly financial results, largely driven by its commercial cloud services.

The PC giant’s revenue stood at 28.9 billion dollars (£22 billion) in the three months to the end of December, up 12% on the same period in 2017.

Net income for the company was also healthy, reaching 8.4 billion dollars (£6.4 billion).

“Our strong commercial cloud results reflect our deep and growing partnerships with leading companies in every industry including retail, financial services and healthcare,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft.

“We are delivering differentiated value across the cloud and edge as we work to earn customer trust every day.”

Revenue from productivity and business processes – which includes products such as Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions, Skype and OneDrive storage – jumped from 8.9 billion dollars (£6.8 billion) to 10.1 billion dollars (£7.7 billion).

Intelligent cloud increased from 7.8 billion dollars (£5.9 billion) to 9.4 billion dollars (£7.2 billion), while its personal computing segment – comprising its Windows operating system, Surface PC devices and Xbox gaming division – grew slightly, from 12.2 billion dollars to 13 billion dollars.

“Our solid execution delivered another strong quarter, with commercial cloud revenue growing 48% year-over-year to nine billion (£6.9 billion),” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft.

“We continue to make strategic investments to capture expanding market opportunities to drive growth across our businesses.”