Microsoft reported revenues for its fiscal first quarter to September up 19 percent to USD 29.1 billion. Operating profit rose 29 percent to USD 10.0 billion, net profit increased 34 percent to USD 8.8 billion, and EPS jumped 36 percent to USD 1.14.
The strong growth was again led by the company's cloud business. Commercial cloud revenues rose 47 percent year-on-year to USD 8.5 billion, and commercial bookings were up 15 percent, driven by larger and longer customer commitments to Azure services.
Microsoft invested USD 4.3 billion in the quarter to support the continued cloud growth. It also returned USD 6.1 billion to shareholders in the period, in the form of dividends and share repurchases, an increase of 27 percent from a year ago. Free cash flow was down 2 percent to USD 10.1 billion due to the higher capex.
Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was USD 9.8 billion, up 19 percent, and operating profit rose 29 percent. This included 33 percent revenue growth at LinkedIn, 36 percent higher Office 365 commercial revenue and 51 percent sales growth at Dynamics 365.
At the More Personal Computing division, revenue rose 15 percent to USD 10.7 billion, and operating profit was up 23 percent. Windows OEM revenue increased 3 percent, and Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 12 percent. Gaming revenue rose 44 percent as third-party title strength helped drive Xbox services. Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 17 percent, and Surface revenue was up 14 percent.
