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Microsoft’s latest quarterly earnings report has shown strong returns from millions of people working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite strong competition from the likes of Zoom and Google when it comes to remote working tools, Microsoft Teams has seen a surge in active users during the Covid-19 pandemic. While publishing the company’s quarterly earnings report for Q1 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Teams now has 115m daily active users, up 50pc on the 75m announced almost six months ago.
“We are seeing increased usage intensity as people communicate, collaborate and co-author content across work, life and learning,” he added.
The platform received a number of updates in recent months and is continuing to add new features, including a ‘virtual commute’ offering at the start and end of your work day to give you time to gather your thoughts as you would with regular commuting.
Microsoft saw strong returns in its latest quarter, with revenue of $37.2bn and net income of $13.9bn. This marked a 12pc and 30pc increase, respectively, on the same quarter last year.
Much of the growth in earnings was tied to the company’s cloud offerings, which are now in greater demand as a result of the pandemic. Commercial cloud revenue generated $15.2bn, up 31pc year on year. Server products and cloud services revenue increased 22pc, driven by Azure revenue growth of 48pc.
A ‘strong start’ to the fiscal year
The company’s gaming business also performed well, with Xbox content and services revenue increasing by 30pc. However, its search advertising revenue, minus traffic acquisition costs, was down by 10pc and revenue for Windows OEM was down 5pc.
“The next decade of economic performance for every business will be defined by the speed of their digital transformation,” Nadella said. “We are innovating across our full modern tech stack to help our customers in every industry improve time to value, increase agility and reduce costs.”
Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, said that with demand for cloud offerings driving a “strong start” to the fiscal year, the company will “continue to invest against the significant opportunity ahead of us to drive long-term growth”.
Hood added in a call with investors said Microsoft expects “very strong demand” for the soon-to-be-launched Xbox Series X and S consoles. This will materialise as “supply-constrained hardware revenue growth of approximately 40pc”, she said.
