Cloud offering drives Microsoft profits in last quarter

Cloud offering drives Microsoft profits in last quarter

Microsoft’s quarterly figures show its primarily generating revenue from cloud offerings. In the quarter that ended September 30, 2021, the cloud business accounted for the largest share of total revenue.

The tech giant posted total revenue of 40 billion euros ($45.3 billion) last quarter, an increase of 22 percent from the same period last year. Net profit consisted of 17.7 billion euros ($20.5 billion).

Strong growth in cloud sales

According to CEO Satya Nadella, the increased quarterly results primarily stem from increasing digitization. Both large and small companies digitize work processes and look to cloud-based services for doing so, as illustrated by Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud services, which claimed the best financial results. The market segment includes services such as Azure and GitHub and posted sales totalling approximately 15 billion euros, a yearly increase of 31 percent.

Public cloud environment Azure managed to double its revenue. According to Microsoft experts, the growth stems from companies’ increasing dependence on Azure and Microsoft Teams for managing their employees remotely. Furthermore, the experts note that cloud-based security services for zero-trust and passwordless log-in proved to be contributing factors.

Other services and products

Sales of software and other services from Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes division — including Dynamics 365, Office 365 and LinkedIn — increased as well. This business unit managed to book sales of almost 13 billion euros ($15.04 billion).

The More Personal Computing business unit, which includes Windows, various devices and gaming products, posted sales of over 11 billion euros. Windows OS, a driving factor, was sold to computer manufacturers more often than expected.

For the second fiscal quarter of 2022, the tech giant expects continued revenue growth. Microsoft forecasts a total of 43.27 billion euros in Q2 2022.