Azure and Office 365 contribute to strong Q4 for Microsoft

20 Jul 2016

As Q4 demonstrated, Microsoft is soaring through the cloud

Microsoft’s focus on the cloud is paying dividends and the software giant reported a strong fourth quarter with revenues of $20.6bn.

Microsoft reported that it had 23.1m Office 365 consumers signed up and that it grew Azure cloud revenue 102pc from a year ago.

The company’s Surface hardware group grew revenue 9pc.

The strong performance yielded Microsoft a profit of $3.1bn for the quarter.

The cloud strategy is central to what Microsoft is now about and, in June, we reported that some 1,600 construction jobs will be created in Dublin to facilitate four new data centres.

“This past year was pivotal in both our own transformation and in partnering with our customers who are navigating their own digital transformations,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft.

“The Microsoft Cloud is seeing significant customer momentum and we’re well positioned to reach new opportunities in the year ahead.”

Revenue in Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes grew 5pc to $7bn, led by Office 365 commercial revenues growing 54pc, 23.1m consumer subscribers and Dynamics CRM Online paid seats growing by a magnitude of 2.5 year-over-year.

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was up 7pc to $6.7bn due to sales of server and cloud services, with Azure growing 102pc and Enterprise Mobility customers doubling to over 33,000.

Revenues in Microsoft’s More Personal Computing group declined 4pc to $8.9bn, despite gains in Windows OEM revenues, and Surface revenues increasing by 9pc, likely caused by Phone revenue continuing its slide by 71pc.

Xbox Life monthly active users were up 33pc year-over-year to 49m.

Microsoft image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com