Microsoft Q2 revenue beat expectations on strong cloud segment performance

Microsoft reported revenues of $26.1 billion for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017, beating what most analysts had projected.

Revenue in the firm’s productivity and business processes segment, which consists of products and services in its portfolio of productivity, communication, and information services, rose 10% to $7.4 billion.

Revenue generated by the company’s intelligent cloud segment rose 8% to $6.9 billion.

Usage of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service more than doubled year-over-year and revenue from the enterprise-grade cloud computing platform increased 93%.

Revenue in more personal computing was $11.8 billion, a 5% decline, driven primarily by lower phone revenue.

“Our customers are seeing greater value and opportunity as we partner with them through their digital transformation.
Accelerating advancements in AI across our platforms and services will provide further opportunity to drive growth in the Microsoft Cloud,” said Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft.

Source: Microsoft

The strong performance of Microsoft’s cloud segment represents the ongoing shift from using corporate data centers to cloud infrastructure as a means of running data and applications.

Microsoft Executive Vice President Judson Althoff, told CIO Journal in October, “Cloud is becoming more than just a tool IT would implement. It is more something that business leaders would implement to drive outcomes. It is now driven by business decision makers as a way to truly transform business, digitally.”