Multinational technology company Microsoft Corp. posted on Wednesday stronger fiscal second-quarter earnings on record sales, driven by growth in its cloud-computing offerings.
The U.S.-based software giant reported profits of $11.6 billion during the second quarter of its fiscal 2020 calendar, up 38% from a year ago, from revenue of $36.9 billion, up 14% from the same period. Surface and Office are both up, and revenue from Windows licenses has also increased just as Windows 7 support comes to an end.
Microsoft’s Surface, a series of touchscreen-based personal computers and interactive whiteboards, revenue jumped massively during the same quarter a year ago, on the back of a Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2, and Surface Headphones launch. It pushed Surface closer to a $2 billion business. This year, Surface revenue has also increased by 6% to $1.9 billion.
Microsoft's growth is primarily being driven by the Intelligent Cloud business, and specifically Microsoft Azure. The Intelligent Cloud business recorded $11.9 billion in revenue, growing by a whopping 27%. Within that business, Azure grew by 62% just by itself.
Microsoft’s productivity and business process division, which includes LinkedIn and commercial subscriptions to the Office 365 product suite, had $11.83 billion in sales, up 17% from the same quarter a year ago. Analysts were expecting sales of $11.43 billion for the quarter.
Microsoft’s revenue is spread across a variety of big businesses, and the company isn’t fully reliant on any individual business for a majority of its revenue.
