At Microsoft, the ongoing trend towards working from home is cushioning the losses caused by the worldwide decline in PC sales. The quarterly turnover is above the forecasts, investors separate from the stock after the trading day.
Despite increased concerns about inflation and the economy worldwide, the computer giant Microsoft significantly increased its revenues in the summer. In the three months to the end of September, sales increased by eleven percent compared to the same period last year to 50.1 billion dollars (50.3 billion euros), as the company announced after the US stock market closed. Analysts had expected proceeds of $49.61 billion and a profit of $2.30 per share.
However, the group is suffering from the strong dollar, which is reducing foreign earnings in US currency. Microsoft's operating profit climbed 6 percent to $21.5 billion. Significantly higher costs let the net result sink by 14 percent to 17.6 billion dollars.
Sales of the Windows operating system shrank by 15 percent. Revenues in the cloud business with applications and storage space on the Internet increased by 24 percent overall. Microsoft's Azure platform - the flagship of the cloud division - posted growth of 35 percent. In the previous quarter it was still 40 percent. Microsoft's shares initially fell by around two percent in after-hours trading.
