Cloud Strength, PC Weakness Mark Microsoft’s Q2 -- Redmondmag.com

Cloud Strength, PC Weakness Mark Microsoft’s Q2

By Scott Bekker
01/28/2016

Microsoft's second quarter was a mixed bag, with its cloud business showing strong growth and its OEM and device revenue down. as reported by the company today.

For a second straight quarter, after-hours markets responded positively to Microsoft financial results that seemed to miss analyst expectations using generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) but looked stronger on an adjusted basis.

After accounting for nearly $2 billion in deferred revenue and a few hundred million more in restructuring and integration charges among other adjustments, Microsoft reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.78 and revenues of $25.69 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of $0.71 and revenues of $25.3 billion. On a non-adjusted basis, Microsoft reported earnings per share of $0.62 and revenues of $23.79 billion. Microsoft shares were up more than 5 percent in after-hours trading.

"We delivered double-digit operating income growth in non-GAAP constant currency while investing in key strategic areas that position Microsoft for continued long-term growth," said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft, in a statement.

By business unit, revenues were $6.7 billion for Productivity and Business Processes, $6.3 billion for Intelligent Cloud and $12.7 billion for More Personal Computing.

Among the highlights:

Microsoft's commercial cloud annualized run rate now exceeds $9.4 billion.
Office 365 revenue growth was nearly 70 percent in constant currency.
Office 365 now has 20.6 million consumer subscribers.
Dynamics was a high point with 11 percent revenue growth in constant currency and a year-over-year doubling of Dynamics CRM Online seat adds.
Server products and cloud services revenue grew 10 percent in constant currency.
Azure revenues were up 140 percent in constant currency.
Windows OEM revenue fell 5 percent in constant currency.
Surface revenues increased 29 percent in constant currency.
Phone revenues declined 49 percent in constant currency.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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