Microsoft rides cloud to higher earnings amid pandemic; profit rises 30% YoY

Microsoft on Tuesday said its profit in the recently ended quarter continued to soar as the pandemic boosted a trend toward business being taken care of in the internet cloud.

The US technology titan's profit rose to $13.9 billion, up 30 per cent from the same quarter last year, according to earnings figures.

Revenue in the quarter climbed 12 per cent to $37.2 billion.

"Demand for our cloud offerings drove a strong start to the fiscal year," said Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood.

Microsoft took in $15.2 billion in revenue from cloud computing offerings for businesses, up 31 per cent from the same period last year, according to Hood.

Demand for software, services, and data storage hosted online at data centers that had been steadily growing for years has rocketed during the pandemic as shopping, learning, work and more are tended to online due to the pandemic.

Businesses are under pressure to engage customers online or lose them, according to Microsoft.

"The next decade of economic performance for every business will be defined by the speed of their digital transformation," said Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.

Revenue was also up from the company's Office suite of software; LinkedIn career-centric social network, and the Xbox video game unit.

Microsoft shares were nudged up a fraction of a per cent in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings report.