Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform revenue has increased by a massive 98 percent. The company’s operating income is estimated at $8.7 billion with a 10% increase. On the other hand, the Surface revenue is up by just 1%, because of just 1 Surfacebook launch; the Surface Book 2 in November. Microsoft has also returned $5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2018.
The revenue in product and business processes combined came up to $9 billion which is a good 25% increase. The Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% and the Office 365 commercial revenue grew by 41% and the subscribers count increased to 29.2 million. LinkedIn in its 3rd full quarter inclusion has also posted a good $1.3 billion revenue contribution during the quarter.
Windows OEM revenue increased 4%, however, the Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue decreased 4% which according to the company is because of the large deal in the previous year. Microsoft’s gaming revenue also increased 8% driven by Xbox hardware like the Xbox One X launch.
The search advertising revenue which doesn’t include traffic acquisition costs increased 15% driven by higher revenue per search and search volume. With Microsoft recently acquiring PlayFab which is a cloud-based gaming startup; indicates the Microsoft’s approach towards gaming platform and this might improve the results further in the coming quarter.