Microsoft reports $28.9 billion in Q2 2018 revenue with strong growth in Productivity and Business

Redmond has just published its earnings report for the second quarter of the 2018 fiscal year. Microsoft reported a revenue of  $28.9 billion, up  12% YoY, with an operating profit of $8.7 billion (up 10%). Microsoft beat analyst expectations, which projected Microsoft’s revenue at $27.2 billion.

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $9.0 billion, an increase of 25%.

“This quarter’s results speak to the differentiated value we are delivering to customers across our productivity solutions and as the hybrid cloud provider of choice,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Our investments in IoT, data, and AI services across cloud and the edge position us to further accelerate growth.”

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $7.8 billion (up 15%) led by  an 18% increase in server products and cloud services revenue due to nearly doubling Azure revenue growth (up 98%.)

“We delivered another strong quarter with commercial cloud revenue growing 56% year-over-year to $5.3 billion,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. “Strong execution from our sales teams and partners is driving growth across our businesses.”

Windows OEM revenue increased 4% driven by OEM Pro revenue growth of 11%.  LinkedIn contributed revenue of $1.3 billion during the quarter with sessions growth of over 20% for the fifth consecutive quarter, while gaming revenue increased 8% driven by Xbox hardware revenue growth from the Xbox One X launch. Surface revenue was flat.

Microsoft returned $5.0 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the quarter.

You can find the full report here.