Consequence to Corona crisis: Microsoft sells more Windows

The cloud business has been a growth driver at Microsoft for years. But in the end, sales are no longer going up so rapidly. Windows and XBox are again in high demand in the corona pandemic.

Microsoft exceeded analyst expectations with its sales last quarter. The software company increased sales by 13 percent year-on-year to a good $ 38 billion – the market was expected to be around $ 36.5 billion. At the same time, the growth of Microsoft's cloud platform Azure slowed from 59 percent to 47 percent within three months. The stock fell temporarily in the after-hours trading on Wednesday by more than two percent.

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Microsoft has consistently focused on the cloud business in recent years, which has become the growth driver. In the Corona crisis, however, the long sluggish PC market was given a tailwind by buying notebooks for home work. The Microsoft division, which bundles business with the Windows operating system, in-house Surface computers and the Xbox game console, increased sales by 14 percent to $ 12.9 billion. Analysts had anticipated about 11.5 billion.

Earnings for the fourth quarter ended June were down 15 percent to $ 11.2 billion. Microsoft announced the closure of most of its in-house retail stores a few weeks ago, which weighed on the balance sheet at $ 450 million.

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