Microsoft’s fiscal third-quarter earnings came in looking good. The company’s earnings results surpassed the expectations of analysts on all margins. Microsoft reported earnings per share of $2.22 per share beating an estimate of $2.19 per share that analysts had forecasted for the fiscal third quarter, according to Refinitiv. Revenue for the quarter came in at $49.36 billion beating an estimate of $49.05 billion from a consensus of analysts polled by Refinitiv.
According to a statement issued by Microsoft, revenue was up 18 percent from the same period ended March 31st in the previous year. Revenue was also up 20 percent from the fiscal second quarter.
In the quarter, expenditures for sales and marketing ran into a total of $5.6 billion, up 10 percent from the same period a year ago, and the fastest growth in more than three years.
The company’s chief financial officer Amy Hood issued guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter while on a call with analysts. The company expects revenue to come in between $52,4 billion and $53.2 billion. Revenue guidance for the company’s three business segments surpassed StreetAccount’s estimates.
Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment had revenue of $19.05 billion in the fiscal third quarter surpassing the $18.90 billion estimates from analysts in a poll compiled by StreetAccount, and is up 26 percent. This segment houses Microsoft’s Azure public cloud for application hosting, SQL Server, Windows Server, and enterprise services.
In the fiscal third quarter, revenue from Azure and other cloud services soared 46 percent in the quarter. This beat the expectations of analysts – a poll by StreetAccount showed that analysts expected growth of 43.6 percent for the segment. Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella also told analysts that the number of Azure deals worth at least $100 million more than doubled in the fiscal third quarter.
Its Productivity and Business Processes segment reported revenue of $15.79 billion. The figure is up 17 percent and surpassed the expectation of $15.75 billion from a poll of analysts by StreetAccount. This segment contains Office productivity software, LinkedIn and Dynamics. During the quarter, Microsoft increased the prices of some Office 365 productivity software subscriptions.
More Personal Computing segment which envelopes Windows, Xbox, Surface, and search advertising reported revenue of $14.52 million in revenue. While it surpassed an expectation of $14.27 billion from a poll of analysts by StreetAccount, it was up 11 percent. Revenue from Windows License sales to PC manufacturers increased 11 percent in the quarter, the company said.
