Cloud growth helped Microsoft gain profit in fourth quarter

Riding on the growth in Cloud space with its Azure platform, US technology giant Microsoft on Tuesday reported a profit of $3.1 billion in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016.

The company's earnings came in at a non-GAAP revenue of $22.6 billion ($20.6 billion GAAP) and $0.69 of non-GAAP per-share profit ($0.39 GAAP) which was well above expectations, Tech Crunch reported.

Microsoft's cloud revenue, which includes the Azure cloud platform and server software, grew 7% to $6.7 billion.

Azure revenue grew 102%, with Azure compute usage more than doubling year-over-year, Microsoft said in a statement.

"This past year was pivotal in both our own transformation and in partnering with our customers who are navigating their own digital transformations. The Microsoft Cloud is seeing significant customer momentum and we're well positioned to reach new opportunities in the year ahead," said Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft.

Revenue in personal computing, however, declined 4% to $8.9 billion. Surface notebook revenue increased 9% driven by Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book while smartphone revenue declined 71%.

The monthly active users for "Xbox Live" gaming service grew 33% year-over-year to 49 million and search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 16% with continued benefit from Windows 10 usage.

Microsoft recently acquired professional networking website LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in an all-cash deal, billed as one of the largest such pacts in the global social media space.