Microsoft's Q3 growth pleases investors

Microsoft has published its earnings for the third quarter of its 2019 financial year, and its investors are impressed: After-market trading has seen the company's market capitalisation pop above $1 trillion.

Microsoft's third quarter for the 2019 financial year showed that the company must be doing something right: Its revenue is up 14 percent year-on-year to $30.6 billion, its operating income up 25 percent to $10.3 billion, and its net income up 19 percent to $8.8 billion. 'Leading organisations of every size in every industry trust the Microsoft cloud,' claimed Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella of the driving force behind his company's growth. 'We are accelerating our innovation across the cloud and edge so our customers can build the digital capability increasingly required to compete and grow.'

That acceleration was visible in a 22 percent year-on-year growth in cloud revenue, though at $9.2 billion for the quarter it still lags behind the company's Productivity and Business Process ($10.2 billion) and More Personal Computing ($10.8 billion) business divisions. From the latter, the biggest winner was in revenue from the company's Surface hardware arm at a 21 percent gain, with Windows commercial products and related cloud services growing 18 percent. Revenue from Windows operating systems sales to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) grew nine percent, while the company's gaming revenue grew just five percent - the bulk of which, the company claims, was driven by Xbox software and services growth of 12 percent, mostly tracked to Microsoft's cut of third-party monetisation on the platform and its own subscription-based services.

Other areas of growth include a 73 percent hike in revenue from the company's Azure cloud computing division, 43 percent from its Dynamics 365 business intelligence arm, 30 percent in Office 365 and 12 percent in Office commercial offerings, and a 27 percent growth for its recently-acquired LinkedIn business social networking subsidiary. Its consumer-oriented Office products, meanwhile, grew just eight percent year-on-year, while its enterprise services division was the worst performer at a four percent growth.

The company's report appears to have pleased investors: After closing slightly down on the day after-market trading saw the company's stock jump 4.38 percent - enough to give the company a temporary boost to a market capitalisation above $1 trillion, though it settled slightly below this before trading ceased.