Redmond: Demand for Microsoft cloud computing services and work software helps increase quarterly profit by 21% because the pandemic continues to make many office workers at home.
The company on Tuesday reported the second-quarter profit of fiscal $ 18.8 billion.
Software makers posted a revenue of $ 51.7 billion for the October-December period, up 20% from the previous year.
Microsoft last week announced its plan to buy high-blizzard game Activision Publisher for $ 68.7 billion, an agreement of all the money that could be the acquisition of the cheapest technology in history if it was holding back monitoring by antitrust regulators.
It can also catapade the Xbox-maker in front of Nintendo to join Sony and Tencent as one of the three biggest video game companies.
But the financial results revealed on Tuesday showed that there were still products that focus on businesses such as the Azure Cloud Microsoft computing platform and software product suite that encouraged the growth of the company.
Net income of $ 2.48 per share beat Wall Street’s expectations.
Analysts surveyed with factset expect Microsoft to get $ 2.32 per share at revenues of $ 50.71 billion for a fiscal quarter.
The sale of the Microsoft cloud computing business segment grew 26% to $ 18.3 billion in the quarter ended in December.
The Microsoft productivity segment, which includes a series of workplace products such as email, grew by 19% from the same period a year earlier, to $ 15.9 billion.
The productivity segment also includes income from LinkedIn Microsoft network network services, which increased 37% from the same time the previous year.
The company late last year stopped the localized version of LinkedIn in Mainland China, citing tightening government restrictions that affected the only Western social networking platform that still operates in this country.
Microsoft’s personal computing business, which includes Windows, Xbox software licenses and its surface lines, grew by 15% to $ 17.5 billion.
Sales of holiday gadgets usually make October-December quarters that are important for surface devices and games and Xbox consoles.
The company said Xbox content and service revenue grew 10% during the same time a year earlier.
The Xbox number at the end of 2020 was driven by the release of the Xbox Series X Microsoft system, a new company console since 2013.