Microsoft has posted a “record fiscal year” in its latest set of financial results. In all, the company made $33.7 billion in the last quarter, a 12% rise year-on-year. For the financial year that ended in June, Microsoft hit a total revenue of $125.8 billion – itself a 14% rise on 2018’s haul.
CEO Satya Nadella said this impressive result reflected a “growing momentum across every layer of our differentiated technology stack.”
Well, almost every stack anyway. Microsoft’s gaming division is in a mini rut, with revenue dropping 10% this quarter and Xbox hardware slipping by 48%. Perhaps that’s not too big a surprise in the final years of Xbox One, and no doubt Microsoft will expect things to bounce back with Project Scarlett. And another positive: Xbox Live active users did hit 65 million, a rise of 14%.
Elsewhere, the news is almost universally good, as you’d expect for such impressive growth. The Surface division is up by 14%, driven by “strong growth in the commercial segment,” Office commercial products went up by the same percentage, and Windows 10 sales sent the OEM Pro side of things up by 18%. There is a slight footnote to that last one though, as non-Pro revenue dipped by 8% due to competition in the “entry-level category.” Chromebooks, in other words, continue to eat Microsoft’s lunch there.
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Leaving the best til’ last though, once again it’s cloud services that really drove Microsoft growth in Q4. The Intelligent Cloud segment grew by 19%, generating $11.4 billion. The highlight of this was Azure growing 64%.
“I’m optimistic about what’s ahead,” Nadella said at the end of his closing remarks on the accompanying investor call. “We are accelerating our innovation to deliver differentiated value to customers across the cloud and the edge from GitHub to Azure to Dynamics 365 to Microsoft 365, as well as Xbox Game Pass.
“We are investing in the right secular trends to expand our opportunity. And we are working to earn our customers’ trust every day.”
Will Microsoft’s growth continue into the next financial year? Let us know what you think on Twitter: @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
