Microsoft revenue increased 17 percent year over year to $30.1 billion in its fiscal year fourth quarter, beating analysts’ expectations of $29.2 billion. For the year, Microsoft reported total revenue at $110.4 billion, up 14 percent.
Each of its three business segments – productivity and business processes, intelligent cloud business and personal computing – experienced double-digit growth. “Exceptional sales execution delivered double-digit revenue growth across all segments and strong progress against our strategic priorities, anchored by commercial cloud revenue growing 53 percent year-over-year to $6.9 billion”, said Microsoft CFO, Amy Hood.
Intelligent cloud business revenue increased 23 percent to $9.6 billion, driven by cloud computing platform Azure, which saw revenue jump 89 percent year over year.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company had an “incredible year”, surpassing $100 billion in revenue. “Our early investments in the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge are paying off, and we will continue to expand our reach in large and growing markets with differentiated innovation”, said Nadella.
Productivity and business processes revenue rose 13 percent to $9.7 billion for the quarter. Within that segment, LinkedIn, acquired by Microsoft in June of 2016, saw revenue increase by 37 percent year over year to $1.4 billion for the quarter. Sessions on LinkedIn grew 41 percent and job postings hit a record high, according to Microsoft. Dynamic products and cloud services revenue increased by 11 percent, with Dynamics 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications, growing by 61 percent year over year in Q4.
Revenue from personal computing products was up 17 percent, delivering $10.8 billion. Microsoft’s gaming revenue saw the biggest growth within this segment at 39 percent (Xbox software and services delivered $2.2 billion for the quarter). Search advertising (Bing Ads) revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was up 17 percent in Q4 2018.
