Microsoft Q4 Results Top Street On Strong Cloud Biz

(RTTNews) - Software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Thursday reported a profit and revenue for the fourth quarter that trounced Wall Street analysts' estimates driven by strong growth in cloud business.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft reported fourth-quarter profit of $13.19 billion or $1.71 per share, up from last year's profit of $8.87 billion or $1.14 per share.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $10.62 billion or $1.37 per share. On average, 29 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.21 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter grew 12 percent to $33.72 billion from $30.09 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $32.77 billion for the quarter.

"It was a record fiscal year for Microsoft, a result of our deep partnerships with leading companies in every industry," said CEO Satya Nadella. "Every day we work alongside our customers to help them build their own digital capability - innovating with them, creating new businesses with them, and earning their trust."

Intelligent Cloud segment revenues, which includes its Azure on-demand computing services, increased 19 percent to $11.4 billion, with Azure revenues surging 64 percent.

Revenues in Productivity and Business Processes rose 14 percent to $11.0 billion, with office commercial products and cloud services revenue up 14 percent driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 31 percent.

Revenues in More Personal Computing segment, which includes Windows operating system, increased 4 percent to $11.3 billion.

"Q4 commercial cloud revenue increased 39% year-over-year to $11.0 billion, driving our strongest commercial quarter ever," said CFO Amy Hood.

MSFT closed Thursday's trading at $136.42, up $0.15 or 0.11%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $$1.87 or 1.37% in the after-hours trade.