Microsoft Cloud Business Drive Company's Profit, Revenue
Microsoft on Thursday reported high revenue and profit as sales of its hardware and cloud-computing services helped to offset a decline in the company's Windows business. The company announced that revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2015 grew to $21.7 billion. Gross margin, operating income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $14.6 billion, $6.6 billion, and $0.61 per share, respectively.
These financial results include $190 million of integration and restructuring expenses, or a $0.01 per share negative impact, related to Microsoft’s restructuring plan announced in July 2014 and the ongoing integration of the Nokia Devices and Services business.
"Customers continue to choose Microsoft to transform their business and as a result we saw incredible growth across our cloud services this quarter," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. "Next week at Build we’re excited to share more about how we’re empowering every individual and organization on the planet to achieve more with the next generation of our platforms."
Microsoft announced the following results for the quarter:
- Office 365 Consumer subscribers increased to over 12.4 million, up 35% sequentially
- Windows OEM Pro revenue declined 19%, as Pro mix returned to pre-Windows XP end-of-support levels and the business PC market declined
- Windows OEM non-Pro revenue declined 26%, primarily due to channel inventory drawdown and ongoing mix shift to opening price point devices
- Search advertising revenue grew 21% (up 24% in constant currency), with Bing U.S. market share at 20.1%, up 150 basis points over prior year
- Xbox Live usage grew over 30%, driven by increased users and deeper user engagement
- Surface revenue of $713 million, up 44% (up 53% in constant currency) driven by Surface Pro 3
- Phone Hardware revenue of $1.4 billion, with 8.6 million Lumia units sold
- Commercial revenue grew 5% (up 7% in constant currency) to $12.8 billion, with the following business highlights:
- Commercial cloud revenue grew 106% (up 111% in constant currency) driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, and is now on an annualized revenue run rate of $6.3 billion
- Server products and services revenue grew 12% (up 16% in constant currency), with premium versions of Windows Server, System Center Server and SQL Server together growing 25%
- Office Commercial products and services revenue declined 2% (up 1% in constant currency); transactional revenue was impacted by the continued transition to Office 365 and declines in business PC sales following the XP refresh cycle
- Windows volume licensing revenue declined 2% (up 1% in constant currency), with transactional revenue declining following the XP refresh cycle partially offset by annuity revenue growth