Microsoft on Thursday announced better than expected September ending quarter results boosted by stronger phone, Surface tablets and cloud-computing products sales.
Redmond reported revenue of $23.2 billion (£14.5bn), an increase of 25 percent from the same period a year ago, beating Wall Street expectations by around $800m (£500m). The company’s net income fell to $4.54 billion or 54 cents a share, down 13.4 percent from $5.2 billion, or 62 cents a share, a year ago.
Microsoft’s phone business, which even includes Nokia’s handset business which the company acquired in April for more than $7.2 billion, added $2.6 billion in revenue to Redmond’s kitty.
Though part of the dip in profits was attributed to $1.14 billion of integration and restructuring expenses resulting out of Nokia phone business acquisition. Microsoft said it sold 9.3 million Lumia phones in the most recent quarter, a 5.6 percent increase from last year’s 8.8 million handset sales.
The Windows developer disclosed that Surface revenue for the quarter topped $908 million (£566m), up 127 percent from the same time last year, all thanks to the successful June launch of its Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Surface Pro 3 is seeing strong interest from students, professionals, and increasingly enterprises, who are replacing their laptops and tablets with the high-rated for their productivity needs.
Although Microsoft did not reveal its cloud-based revenue for the fiscal first quarter, but it reported that the company’s commercial cloud sales rose 128 percent during the quarter from a year ago, while sales of services based on its Azure cloud platform rose 121 percent.
The company also reported 2.4m Xbox sales during the last three months, up 102 per cent on the same period last year.
“We are innovating faster, engaging more deeply across the industry, and putting our customers at the center of everything we do, all of which positions Microsoft for future growth, said Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive officer.
“Our teams are delivering on our core focus of reinventing productivity and creating platforms that empower every individual and organization.”
