Microsoft has released its FY18 Q3 earnings report revealing that the sales numbers were well ahead of what the analysts estimated. Microsoft’s cloud business such as Azure and the Office 365 is still the number one cash cow for the firm. Microsoft reports $26.8 billion revenue in FY18 Q3, and the operating revenue grew 23% to reach $8.3 billion mark.
Microsoft in the press release notes that the revenue for the quarter was $26.8 billion, an increase of 16% year-over-year, and net income was $7.4 billion. It is worth noting that in the third quarter, Microsoft returned $6.3 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.
“Our results this quarter reflect the trust people and organizations are placing in the Microsoft Cloud,” said Microsoft’s chief executive officer Satya Nadella. “We are innovating across key growth categories of infrastructure, AI, productivity, and business applications to deliver differentiated value to customers,” he added.
In terms of the divisions, revenue in More Personal Computing was $9.9 billion and increased 13%, the commercial cloud performed strongly during the quarter as well, with Azure recording a revenue increase of 93%.
The More Personal Computing posted a 13% revenue increase to $9.9 billion. In this division, Windows OEM revenue increased 4% and Windows commercial products and cloud services reported an increase in revenue of 21%.
“With consistent investment and strong sales execution, this quarter we achieved better than expected performance across all segments. We delivered double-digit revenue and operating income growth driven by 58% growth in our commercial cloud revenue,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Microsoft.
The More Personal Computing business shows an impressive growth of the company’s Surface business, the company says that the Surface revenue increased 32%. With rumours suggesting Microsoft could launch Surface-branded mobile devices, more substantial growth is expected in the next quarter. The gaming revenue also went up 18%.
In Productivity and Business Processes, Office productivity suite business for consumers also performed very well with an increase of 12% in revenue, and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 30.6 million. Once again, the revenue generated by LinkedIn is impressive as Microsoft reports 37% increase.
