Microsoft’s Q2 Azure revenue up 50%, commercial cloud run rate at $66.8 billion; forecast tops consensus


Microsoft’s second quarter blew by expectations as its commercial cloud sales surged 34% en route to a $66.8 billion annual revenue run rate.
The company forecast revenue this quarter, moreover, as much as $2.5 billion higher than Wall Street’s expectations.
For the three months ended in December, Microsoft reported second quarter net income of $15.5 billion, or $2.03 a share, on revenue of $43.1 billion, up 17% from a year ago.
Wall Street was expecting Microsoft to report second quarter earnings of $40.18 billion with earnings of $1.64 a share.
CEO Satya Nadella said digital transformation and cloud demand drove results for Microsoft. Indeed, Azure revenue growth was up 50% in the second quarter.
Microsoft’s growth was strong across most product lines.
Analysts said that Microsoft has benefited from COVID-19 and remote work. Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said:
For Redmond, this cloud shift and WFH dynamic looks here