Microsoft reported another strong quarter of revenue and earnings growth. In the three months to December, revenue rose 20 percent year-on-year to USD 51.7 billion and operating profit was up 24 percent to USD 22.2 billion. Net profit for the company's fiscal second quarter increased 21 percent to USD 18.8 billion, or USD 2.48 per share.
The company's cloud services, led by the Azure platform, again drove the double-digit growth. Revenue at the Intelligent Cloud division rose 26 percent year-on-year to USD 18.3 billion, and operating profit was up 26 percent to USD 8.2 billion. That included a 29 percent increase in revenue from server products and cloud services like Azure and 46 percent growth in sales of other cloud services.
The More Personal Computing division also showed solid growth thanks to continued strong demand for new computers around the world. Revenues here reached USD 17.5 billion, up 15 percent from a year ago, and operating profit rose 22 percent to nearly USD 6.4 billion. That includes 25 percent revenue growth in Windows OEM revenue and 13 percent higher Windows Commercial products revenue, following the release of Windows 11.
Xbox content and services revenue also increased 10 percent, with a 4 percent rise in hardware sales. Revenue from the Surface products rose 8 percent, and search and news advertising revenue increased 32 percent excluding traffic acquisition costs.
Finally, revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was up 19 percent to USD 15.9 billion, and operating profit rose 24 percent to USD 7.7 billion. Office Commercial revenue increased 14 percent, driven by Office 365 revenue growth of 19 percent, and Office Consumer revenue increased 15 percent, with an increase to 56.4 million 365 subscribers. LinkedIn revenue rose 37 percent.
Capital expenditure increased to USD 6.8 billion to support the growth in cloud services, leaving the company with free cash flow of USD 8.6 billion, up 3 percent year-on-year. Microsoft said it returned USD 10.9 billion to shareholders in the quarter, in the form of share repurchases and dividends, an increase of 9 percent compared to the year-earlier period.
