After investment in the cloud computing market, Microsoft has revealed its financial results for the first quarter of 2018 – providing good news for shareholders and customers alike.
The Washington-based firm reported quarterly revenue of $26.8 billion (£20 billion) and a net income of $7.4 billion (£5.5 billion). This represents a 16% year-on-year revenue growth, and a 35% jump in net income.
Some of this growth can be attributed to Microsoft now factoring LinkedIn into its quarterly reports. The social network alone was responsible for $1.3 billion (£1 billion) of the company’s total revenue; a 37% year-on-year increase. It seems that Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn for $26 billion (£19.4 billion) back in 2016 is paying off.
Revenue growth was also driven by continually strong user numbers of Office 365. The number of active users today stands at 135 million. Microsoft’s stable of server products and cloud services posted revenue growth of 20% year-on-year (with Azure revenue seeing a 90% jump).
Meanwhile, Surface has picked back up following a relatively stagnant Christmas period. Annual revenues are up 32%, and the figure could grow further still if the heavily rumoured Surface Notepad arrives before the year is out.
To top it all off, Microsoft has used what it calls ‘Constant Currency’ to accurately monitor its financial performance. This uses average exchange rates for comparative periods – rather than actual exchange rates – to prevent currency fluctuations from artificially adjusting the reports.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was in an understandably buoyant mood when revealing these latest figures. He put the growth down to continued trust in the Microsoft brand from customers that have remained staunch users for many years, as well as a desire to not stand still.
“Our results this quarter reflect the trust people and organisations are placing in the Microsoft Cloud computing market,” he said. “We are innovating across key growth categories of infrastructure, AI, productivity, and business applications to deliver differentiated value to customers.”
