Who cares about Windows 10? Microsoft might not even need it.
That’s an exaggeration, but Microsoft keeps finding new ways to prove that it is built to survive the “post-PC” world.
Sales of Windows tanked last quarter, falling 19% for business customers and a stunning 26% for consumers, over the same period last year. That’s mostly because Microsoft last year pulled life support from its decade-old Windows XP operating system, sending folks into a tizzy buying up Windows 7 and 8 licenses and PCs.
With that big Windows-buying boom out of the way, Windows sales returned to normal — that is, not all that great.
But Microsoft had plenty of fire power left in its arsenal to more than make up the difference.
The breakdown:
Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription service is booming. It now has 12.4 million customers, up 35% from the previous quarter.
Sales of Microsoft’s once deeply troubled Surface tablet were up a whopping 44% from a year ago to $713 million last quarter.
Microsoft’s cloud business more than doubled its revenue (up 106%), and it is on pace to become a more than $6.3 billion business for the company. (Take that, Amazon — Microsoft’s rival just said its cloud business was on pace to post $5 billion in sales this year).
Bing ad sales grew 21%, and the company’s share of the search market eclipsed 20% for the first time in its history.
Lumia smartphone sales totaled 8.6 million units, bringing in $1.4 billion in sales.
Overall, Microsoft’s profit fell by nearly 12% to $5 billion, in part due to the ongoing restructuring at the company — Microsoft cut 18,000 jobs last year, forcing a $190 million hit to its bottom line this past quarter.
Still, Microsoft earned 61 cents per share, well above Wall Street analysts’ forecasts of 51 cents.
Sales rose 6% to $21.7 billion, also exceeding analysts’ expectations.
Shares of Microsoft rose 3% after hours.
