Microsoft Q1 powered by cloud as most units, product lines shine

Microsoft reported strong fiscal first quarter earnings as sales surged 22% and Azure and other cloud services sales grew 50%.

The company reported strong revenue growth across most of its product lines excluding Office commercial products as well as Surface and Xbox content and services revenue.

Microsoft reported net income of $20.5 billion with earnings of $2.71 a share. Non-GAAP earnings for the first quarter were $2.27 a share on revenue of $45.3 billion.

Wall Street was looking for first quarter revenue of $43.97 billion with earnings of $2.07 a share.

CEO Satya Nadella said technology demand would remain strong as inflation picked up because it is a "deflationary force in an inflationary economy."

Microsoft Cloud revenue for the first quarter was $20.7 billion in revenue, up 36% from a year ago.

By unit, Microsoft's Productivity and Business Processes revenue was $15 billion in the first quarter with Office 365 Commercial revenue growth of 23%, LinkedIn revenue growth of 42% and Dynamics 65 revenue groth of 48%.

The Intelligent Cloud division reported revenue of $17 billion, up 31% from a year ago. More Personal Computing revenue was $13.3 bilion, up 12% from a year ago.

Other notable data points:

• Microsoft's search and news advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 40%.
• Surface revenue fell 17%.
• And LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions growth was up 61% in the first quarter compared to a year ago.

The first quarter highlights in review:

Cloud:

• Global Azure outage knocked out virtual machines, other VM-dependent services
• EU regulators asking Teams rivals about Microsoft's bundling practices, per Slack's 2020 complaint
• Microsoft's Cloud for Financial Services to be generally available November 1
• Microsoft grants Azure credits to open source projects for a year
• Former AWS exec Charlie Bell to head new Microsoft Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management org

Enterprise software:

• Microsoft readies new Feedback Portal preview for end of 2021
• Microsoft to add new education-focused M365 A1 per-device subscription plan
• Microsoft's new non-subscription Office 2021 starts at $150 and arrives October 5
• Microsoft takes another crack at a dual-screen Android phone with Duo 2
• Microsoft readies more Teams hybrid meeting features; frees up more LinkedIn remote-work courses
• Whatever happened to Hyper-V Server and other Windows Server 2022 questions
• Microsoft Teams: These new features arrive to keep workers on the move
• The best Surface PC: Every Surface device is Windows 11-ready

Windows 11:

• Microsoft's Windows 11: How to get it now (or later)
• Windows 11 FAQ: Our upgrade guide and everything else you need to know
• Microsoft fixes AMD CPU performance issue with new Windows 11 test build
• Microsoft releases first preview of its Windows Subsystem for Android
• Microsoft starts testing 'Update Stack Packages' to help streamline Windows updating process
• How to create the perfect Windows 11 virtual machine
• Windows 11: Half of enterprise workstations don't meet the new system requirements, says survey
• Microsoft makes Windows Subsystem for Linux for Windows 11 a separate app in the Microsoft Store
• Microsoft rolls out more fixes and a new 'Microsoft 365' widget in latest Windows 11 test build release
• Microsoft to consolidate multiple OneNote for Windows apps into a single new version