Microsoft beats expectations as it shifts to focus on cloud

Microsoft's fourth quarter profit beat Wall Street estimates, after it received a boost from its LinkedIn buy and its move to focus on cloud computing began to pay off. 

Shares in the group rose as much as 1.5pc in after-hours trading on Thursday, having touched a record high earlier in the day.

Microsoft posted revenue of $24.7bn (£19bn) for the three months ended June 30, ahead of analyst forecasts of $24.3bn.

Profit, excluding certain items, came in at 98 cents a share, ahead of Bloomberg estimates for 71 cents per share. 

LinkedIn, the professional social network it bought for $26.2bn last year, generated $1.1bn in revenue in the period. 

Microsoft said its cloud computing division also performed strongly, with revenue growing 11pc to $7.4bn, ahead of analyst expectations for $7.3bn. 

Last year, Microsoft opened its first UK-based data centres in London, Durham and Cardiff, to power its online computing services in the UK and enable customers using both Microsoft's Azure and Office 365 to have their data kept in the UK. 

Sales of its Azure product were up 97pc in the period and the Office 365 package, including the Word and Excel applications, rose 43pc. 

The group is in the process of moving its resources to its cloud computing operations, and earlier this month underwent a huge restructuring, cutting thousands of marketing and sales jobs.