Software giant Microsoft delivered strong financial results for the quarter ended 30 June, with the company raking in $19.5 billion from its commercial cloud services.
The company’s revenue for the period was $46.2 billion and increased 21%; operating income was $19.1 billion, an increase of 42%; net income was $16.5 billion, up 47%; and diluted earnings per share was $2.17, an increase of 49%.
“We are innovating across the technology stack to help organisations drive new levels of tech intensity across their business,” says Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft.
“Our results show that when we execute well and meet customers’ needs in differentiated ways in large and growing markets, we generate growth, as we’ve seen in our commercial cloud – and in new franchises we’ve built, including gaming, security and LinkedIn, all of which surpassed $10 billion in annual revenue over the past three years.”
“As we closed out the fiscal year, our sales teams and partners delivered a strong quarter with over 20% top- and bottom-line growth, highlighted by commercial bookings growth of 30% year-over-year,” says Amy Hood, executive vice-president and CFO of Microsoft. “Our commercial cloud revenue grew 36% year-over-year to $19.5 billion.”
According to Microsoft, revenue in productivity and business processes was $14.7 billion and increased 25%.
It adds that Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 20%, driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 25%.
Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 18% and Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers increased to 51.9 million, says the company.
Microsoft points out that LinkedIn revenue increased 46%, driven by Marketing Solutions growth of 97%. Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 33%, driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 49%.
Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $17.4 billion and increased 30%, with server products and cloud services revenue increasing 34%, driven by Azure revenue growth of 51%.
The software company notes that revenue in more personal computing was $14.1 billion and increased 9%.
However, Windows revenue decreased 3%, while Xbox content and services revenue also went down 4%.
Microsoft says it returned $10.4 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021, an increase of 16% compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020.