Courtesy of Benzinga.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) missed earnings expectations, but posted a 17 percent increase in fiscal fourth-quarter revenue, citing strong results from its cloud-based products.
Profits fell seven percent to $4.61 billion, or $0.56 per share, from $4.97 billion, or $0.59 a year earlier. Revenue grew to $23.38 billion, from $19.896 a year earlier.
Wall Street expected $0.60 per share on revenue of $23 billion.
Gross margin widened to $15.78 billion, from $14.29 billion a year earlier.
"I'm proud our aggressive move to the cloud is paying off," Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in a statement, noting that cloud revenue doubled to a $4.4 billion annual run rate.
Revenue for cloud-based Office 365 and Azure both grew more than 100 percent, according to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.
The $7 billion acquisition of Nokia completed in April contributed earnings in the fourth quarter of $0.08 per share along with $1.99 billion in revenue, the company said.
An outlook for fiscal 2015 earnings is expected in a conference call starting at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Microsoft traded recently after-hours at $45.15, up 0.71 percent.
Posted-In: Nokia Satya NadellaEarnings News Guidance After-Hours Center