Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Analysts surprised
Microsoft increases sales vigorously
Microsoft is now making more money with its Azure platform than with the Windows operating system. In the most recent quarter, it is again the cloud business that brings the group the strongest business growth.
Microsoft had another quarter of record sales. The group owes this primarily to its success in gaining new cloud customers. Part of the video game business could not keep up with the rapid growth rates.
Microsoft is among the companies that have benefited the most from home office and distance learning during the pandemic. The company, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, reported on Tuesday after the stock market closed for the fourth fiscal quarter an increase in sales of around 21 percent to 46.2 billion dollars. Profits jumped 47 percent to $ 16.5 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts had expected sales of $ 44.1 billion and a profit of $ 14.6 billion.
In after-hours trading, the share initially fell by more than 2 percent. The Windows manufacturer is now valued at over $ 2 trillion, placing it in second place behind Apple. In the past year, Microsoft’s share price has risen by around 40 percent.
Revenues in connection with the Azure cloud service rose by 51 percent and thus slightly more than in the previous two quarters of 50 percent. Azure overtook the Windows operating system as Microsoft’s primary source of income last year. The platform offers storage space and IT services to other companies. The video game business was most recently driven by the launch of new Xbox consoles and streaming services for games, but Xbox content and services revenue declined 4 percent in the final quarter.
As the US economy has begun to loosen some of the pandemic-related restrictions and reopen the offices, Microsoft wants to benefit from hybrid work models with new offers. In February, the company released a suite of applications for a work environment where some employees work from home and others work in the office. The group recently introduced the Windows 365 cloud service, which relocates the entire operating system, including applications, data and settings, to the Microsoft cloud.
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