Cloud Drives Microsoft's First Quarter Results

Microsoft announced its business results for the third quarter of 2019. The company had double digit growth of revenue and income, compared with the same period last year.

Revenue was $33.1 billion and increased 14% on a yearly basis, operating income rose 27% to $12.7 billion, net income was $10.7 billion and increased 21%, while diluted earnings per share increased 21% to $1.38. Microsoft returned $7.9 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, an increase of 28% compared to the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.

“The world’s leading companies are choosing our cloud to build their digital capability,“ said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We are accelerating our innovation across the entire tech stack to deliver new value for customers and investing in large and growing markets with expansive opportunity.“

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $11.1 billion and increased 13% (up 15% in constant currency), while Intelligent Cloud earned $10.8 billion, marking an increase of 27% compared with last year (29% in constant currency). Revenue in More Personal Computing was $11.1 billion and increased 4% (up 5% in constant currency).

The largest income increase was in server products and cloud services. Revenue increased 30% (up 33% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 59% (63% in constant currency). Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 26% (up 29% in constant currency), while Dynamics 365 revenue grew 41% (44% in constant currency).