The North American company is powered by the cloud to achieve great growth in profits, although with a weak last quarter
the tech giant Microsoft reported this Tuesday a historic benefit of more than 72,700 million dollars in its fiscal year 2022, ending in June, thanks in large part to the continued growth of its cloud services, led by Azure. That annual benefit was 19% higher than the previous yearwhen it reached 60,000 million for the first time, while turnover grew by 18% year-on-year, to almost 198,300 million, driven by ‘software’ (services) versus ‘hardware’ (product).
“In a dynamic environment, we have seen strong demand, gained share and increased customer engagement with our cloud platform,” Amy Hood, the California company’s chief financial officer, said in the earnings report. In the year as a whole, the cloud accounted for most of the billing, with 75,251 million, 25% more; followed by the productivity and business processes segment, which raised 63,364 million, and the personal computing segment (59,655 million).
In the fourth quarter, from April to June, Microsoft’s figures were also positive although less buoyant: it earned 16,740 million, 2% more, with a turnover of 51,865 million, 12% more, in both cases compared to the same stretch of the financial year 2021. In this sense, those quarterly results were worse than expected by Wall Street analysts and the company acknowledged having faced a “changing” economic situation and “unforeseen” elements, from the strengthening of the dollar to the war in Ukraine.
The “unfavorable” exchange rate has reduced its income by 595 million, while the reduction of operations in Russia has meant expenses for bad debts, impaired assets and layoffs worth 126 million. He also said that production stoppages in China and the “deterioration” of the personal computer market have cost him 300 million, and recent adjustments to his workforce have resulted in severance payments of 113 million.
In the last quarter, Microsoft saw a 20% growth in cloud billing, with a notable 40% in the Azure service, but the specialized media pointed out that this growth is lower than the same period last year. There are also shadows in other segments, such as a 6% drop in the Xbox console and its games, or a 2% drop in Windows licenses paid by computer manufacturers.
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The specialized media point out that between April and June the technology had its weakest earnings growth in 2 years, precisely after the brilliant time that followed the covid-19 pandemic, which led to the implementation of teleworking and digital entertainment. Still, the company’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, said he sees an “opportunity to help every client in every industry use digital technology to overcome today’s challenges and come out stronger,” and said “no company is better positioned” than she in the field of corporate digitization.
The results, published at the close of the stock market, generated a negative reaction and the shares of the listed company lost 0.2% in electronic operations. In the last year, Microsoft lost 12% of capitalization and stands at 1.95 billion dollars.