Microsoft Q4 Profit Beats View On Strong Cloud Results

(RTTNews) - Software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Thursday reported an increase in profit for the fourth-quarter that also trumped Wall Street's estimates, as cloud business continues to soar.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft reported fourth-quarter profit of $8.87 billion or $1.14 per share, up from last year's $8.07 billion or $1.03 per share.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter rose to $1.13 per share from $1.06 per share last year. On average, 28 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.08 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter grew 17 percent to $30.09 billion from $25.61 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $29.21 billion for the quarter.

"Exceptional sales execution delivered double-digit revenue growth across all segments and strong progress against our strategic priorities, anchored by commercial cloud revenue growing 53% year-over-year to $6.9 billion," said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft.

Intelligent Cloud segment revenues, which includes its Azure on-demand computing services, increased 23 percent to $9.6 billion, with Azure revenues surging 89 percent.

Revenues in Productivity and Business Processes rose 13 percent to $9.7 billion, with office commercial products and cloud services revenue up 10 percent driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 42 percent.

Revenues in More Personal Computing segment, which includes Windows operating system, increased 17 percent to $10.8 billion.

"We had an incredible year, surpassing $100 billion in revenue as a result of our teams' relentless focus on customer success and the trust customers are placing in Microsoft," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "Our early investments in the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge are paying off, and we will continue to expand our reach in large and growing markets with differentiated innovation."

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has been transforming itself and focusing more on cloud-based services.

MSFT closed Thursday's trading at $104.40, down $0.72 or 0.68%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, gained $0.08 or 0.08% in the after-hours trade.