Microsoft has reported its earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2019. The company met Wall Street’s target and forecast for the company but reported slow growth in its Azure Cloud platform.
The software giant has reported revenue of $32.5 billion and net income of $8.4 billion. The earnings per share stand at $1.08. The company has met the estimation of analysts but did not beat them.
Microsoft’s flagship cloud product, Azure reported revenue growth of 76% in the fiscal second quarter that ended on December 31, down from the 98% surge a year earlier. Azure sales increased by 76% in the September quarter. Microsoft failed to shift its focus completely from software products to cloud market. The company lost competition to Amazon’s AWS platform, which continues to dominate the cloud market.
In the official statement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “Our strong commercial cloud results reflect our deep and growing partnerships with leading companies in every industry including retail, financial services, and healthcare.”
In January, Microsoft signed a deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc and Kroger Co. Microsoft had also signed a five-year deal with Walmart Inc in the last summer. The company is now focusing on retail giants to keep pace with the e-commerce business of Amazon. Nadella himself is focused on growing Azure revenue.
Microsoft is making good progress on the emerging technologies front. The company was dependent on its large customers outside of the United States for Cloud. Azure holds 17 percent of the overall cloud market share.
The software giant is spending more on the latest cloud technologies to narrow the gap. The company has started investing in research and development efforts. The company is spending aggressively to double its cloud growth. Analysts hope that Microsoft will bounce back in its Azure business in the next quarter.