Microsoft Makes More Profit and Revenue From Surface and Xbox Divisions

Microsoft posted higher revenues and more profit than expected in the past quarter. This is partly due to good figures from the Xbox and Surface divisions.

Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was $26.8 billion, up 16 percent from last year. Earnings came in at $7.4 billion, up 35 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. In almost all individual departments, sales rose by double digits in percentage.

Microsoft isn’t disclosing hardware sales details, but in terms of sales, the Xbox and Surface divisions have done well. Xbox service revenues grew 24 percent. This includes the Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass subscription service. There are now 59 million active Xbox Live users. Surface hardware sales were up 32 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

Azure continues to be a major driver, as in previous quarters. Cloud service revenue rose 93 percent in the quarter. Other business services from Microsoft also performed well. For example, the turnover from LinkedIn increased by 37 percent and from the business Office 365 variant that was 42 percent.

Microsoft now claims to have more than 135 million active Office 365 business users. In addition, there are 30.6 million consumers who pay for Office 365. LinkedIn generated revenue of $1.3 billion in the past quarter. Microsoft paid more than $26 billion for the acquisition in 2016.