Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) unveiled its latest quarterly earnings results after the bell on Thursday, posting profit that came in well ahead of analysts’ expectations.
The Pacific Northwest tech company posted its fiscal fourth quarter results for 2018, closing out the year with a bang as the company’s adjusted earnings tallied up to $1.13 per share, excluding certain items. Analysts were calling for the company to amass adjusted earnings of $1.08 cents per share for the period, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Microsoft also impressed on the sales front as the company’s fourth-quarter revenue reached $30.09 billion, ahead of the $29.21 billion that analysts were calling for, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters. The figure was a 17% improvement compared
to the company’s year-ago revenue.
The company did not unveil how much revenue Azure raked in for the quarter, but did announce that the figure was an 89% improvement compared to the year-ago quarter. KeyBanc analysts project that Azure likely yielded $2.05 billion of Commercial Cloud revenue, which marks an 80% year-over-year growth, while declining from the 93% growth it raked in during its third quarter of fiscal 2018.
Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud brought in $9.6 billion in revenue, growing about 23% compared to the year-ago period. Analysts were projecting the tech giant to bring in Intelligent Cloud revenue of $9.09 billion, per FactSet.
MSFT stock gained more than 0.3% on Thursday after the bell following the company’s quarterly earnings report. Shares were down about 0.7% during regular trading hours.
