MICROSOFT SALES AND PROFIT BEAT ESTIMATES ON CLOUD GROWTH
BENAGALURU/SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft Corp. beat Wall Street estimates for revenue and profit in its first quarter on Wednesday, as more businesses signed up for its Azure cloud computing services and Office 365 software. Microsoft shares have tripled since Satya Nadella became chief executive in 2014 and refocused the company on building data centre software and services. The stock, which has risen more than 21% over the past 12 months, gained 1.9% in after-hours trading following the earnings report. Much of Microsoft’s recent growth has been fuelled by companies moving to the cloud from on-premise data centres, helping it to beat analysts’ profit targets for more than two years. Commercial cloud revenue, which includes Azure sales, hit $8.5 billion, up 47% from the year-ago quarter. The growth margin for that business rose to 62% from 58% in the year-ago quarter and 59% in the prior quarter.