Microsoft profit beats on strong cloud demand

Microsoft Corp reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, helped by a strong performance in its fast-growing cloud business.

The company`s shares rose as much as 1.5 percent in trading after the bell on Thursday. They had touched a record high of $74.30 in regular trading.

Microsoft said revenue from its cloud unit, which includes the flagship Azure platform and server products, rose about 11 percent to $7.43 billion in the fourth quarter.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of $7.32 billion, according to data and analytics firm FactSet.

Revenue from Azure nearly doubled in the quarter. http://bit.ly/2oQAzSJ

The service competes with Amazon.com Inc`s Amazon Web Services as well as offerings from Alphabet Inc`s Google, IBM and Oracle Corp .

Microsoft has sharpened its focus on the fast-growing cloud computing unit as part of Chief Executive Satya Nadella`s "mobile first, cloud first" strategy to offset weakness in the PC market.

The company`s net income more than doubled to $6.51 billion, or 83 cents per share, in the quarter ended June 30 from $3.12 billion, or 39 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, Microsoft earned 98 cents per share.

On an adjusted basis, revenue rose 9.1 percent to $24.7 billion.

Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of 71 cents per share and revenue of $24.27 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)