Microsoft Q2 Tops Wall Street - Update

(RTTNews) - Software giant Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Wednesday reported a loss for the second quarter, hurt largely by a hefty tax charge related to the recent U.S. tax changes. Nevertheless, second-quarter adjusted earnings trumped analysts' estimates as did revenues, driven largely by strong growth in cloud business.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft reported second-quarter loss of $6.30 billion or $0.82 per share, compared to last year's profit of $6.27 billion or $0.80 per share.

Results for the quarter included a $13.8 billion net charge related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.96 per share. On average, 30 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.86 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter rose 12 percent to $28.92 billion from $25.83 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $28.39 billion for the quarter.

Intelligent Cloud segment, which includes its Azure on-demand computing services, revenues increased 15 percent to $7.8 billion, with Azure revenues surging 98 percent.

"This quarter's results speak to the differentiated value we are delivering to customers across our productivity solutions and as the hybrid cloud provider of choice," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "Our investments in IoT, data, and AI services across cloud and the edge position us to further accelerate growth."

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has been transforming itself and focusing more on cloud-based services as PC shipments continue to drop.

Revenues in productivity and business processes grew 25 percent to $9.0 billion. Revenues in More Personal Computing segment, which includes Windows operating system, increased 2 percent to $12.2 billion.

MSFT closed Wednesday's trading at $95.01, up $2.27 or 2.45% on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, fell $1.01 or 1.06% in the after-hours trade.