Microsoft increases profit by 3.6% – Stock price at record USD 64.3

The American software giant Microsoft increased its profit by 3.6% to USD 5.2 billion in the second fiscal quarter, thanks to the growth of its cloud computing business.

According to the Microsoft report, the revenues in the past quarter (up to December 31, 2016) reached USD 25.8 billion, which, as Reuters says, exceeds the average analysts' projection of USD 25.2 billion.

Thanks to better-than-expected results, the software giant's stock rose by around 1% at the Wall Street to the record USD 64.3.

Microsoft owes the growth of its revenues to the success of its cloud computing business, as the revenues in that segment grew by 8% y-o-y to USD 6.9 billion.

However, the gross margin dropped slightly to 48%, as there's plenty competition in the field from Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google, IBM and Oracle.

On the other hand, the biggest software producer's revenues are affected by a drop in PC sales, which has led to reduced demand for Windows operating systems.

According to IDC data, PC sales in the world dropped by 1.5% y-o-y in the last quarter of 2016. This has caused the Microsoft revenues in the segment including Windows and mobile operations to drop by 5% to USD 11.8 billion in the past quarter.

Under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is slowly reorienting from traditional software business, whose growth is slow, to cloud services and mobile apps.

Microsoft Corporation Washington

amazon.com Inc. SAD

Google Inc. United States

IBM Corporation New York

Oracle Corporation SAD

Microsoft operations

Microsoft stock price

Microsoft cloud

Oracle

Windows

PC

Satya Nadella

Wall Street