Microsoft rakes in a massive $43.1 billion in revenue for FY21 Q2, surpassing expectations
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What you need to know
Microsoft reportedits FY21 Q2 earningstoday, bringing in a massive $43.1 billion up 17 percent year over year from $36.9 billion.
The earnings reveal how well-positioned Microsoft is for what CEO Satya Nadella calls “the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry.”
Overall highlights for the quarter include:
Commerical and cloud reign king
As expected, commercial cloud revenue reached a massive $16.7 billion, up 34 percent year over year:
Other revenues from Productivity and Business Processes include:
Surface and Windows going strong
Revenue in More Personal Computing was $15.1 billion and increased 14% (up 13% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
Microsoft’s Surface devices for the first timebroke $2 billion in rev, a modest increaseyear over year of three percent.
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Microsoft does not break out the Surface numbers individually, so it is unclear which device is selling the best. Microsoft launchedSurface Pro X (SQ2)andSurface Duothis year along with its existing lineups ofSurface Laptop Go,Surface Pro 7,Surface Book 3,Surface Go 2, and Surface Laptop 3.
Windows OEM growth was also up slightly by 1 percent, due to a mix of declining OEM Pro revenue (down 9 percent) and a significant uptick in OEM non-Pro licenses (up 24 percent).
Xbox looms large
Xbox also did exceptionally well with a massive51 percent jump in revenue.
Microsoft attributes its gaming successes to various factors, but spotlighting the recent launch of its newXbox Series XandXbox Series Sconsoles. It contributed to hardware revenue near-doubling with an 86 percent surge, as it scrambles to meet demand with its latest generation consoles. The two new devices launched back in November, with tight availability expected to continue over the coming months.
Content and services saw an uptick this quarter, including Xbox software and subscriptions, rising 40 percent year-over-year. Microsoft pins this on “strength” from third-party and first-party titles, as well as its Xbox Game Pass memberships. It contrasts the downward slump witnessed this time last year, where overall gaming revenue fell 21% at the tail end of the Xbox One generation.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented on today’s earnings:
What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry," said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Building their own digital capability is the new currency driving every organization’s resilience and growth. Microsoft is powering this shift with the world’s largest and most comprehensive cloud platform.
More details about Microsoft’s quarterly performance are due later this afternoon during the earnings call.
Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer,podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.
