Cloud biz helps Microsoft's December quarter sales go past $50 billion

Microsoft said its earnings continued to grow last quarter as its Cloud-services business stayed strong.

On Tuesday, the software giant said its sales in the quarter ended in December hit $51.7 billion, up 20% from a year earlier. Its net income rose 21% to $18.8 billion.

The results beat predictions from analysts, who were expecting $50.7 billion in revenue and $17.5 billion in net income, according to FactSet.

Microsoft’s overall cloud revenue increased 32% from the year-earlier quarter to $22.1 billion. Its cloud-infrastructure service, called Azure, grew by 46%, down slightly from the prior quarter’s 48% growth

Microsoft shares initially fell in after-hours trading, but then rebounded to a gain of more than 1% after the company issued its outlook for the current quarter.

For the period, Microsoft expects sales of $48.5 billion to $49.3 billion, compared with analyst expectations of $48.1 billion, according to FactSet.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the shift of remote working that followed the spread of Covid-19. Companies, governments and schools across the world started using more cloud-based technologies, and Microsoft has been selling the tools used for the shift. While an increasing number of organisations have been returning to doing more work in offices, the Omicron variant of the virus may be delaying the return to normalcy.

Microsoft pledges clarity over UK Xbox subscriptions

Microsoft will begin offering more information to customers about how it automatically renews Xbox online gaming subscriptions in Britain, the UK's competition watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had secured undertakings from the US tech giant to inform customers upfront about auto-renewals for Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass subscriptions.