Microsoft experienced a 17% year-on-year increase in revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2021, reporting strong growth across most of its services throughout 2020.
While Microsoft experienced major growth in across services such as LinkedIn, Windows Surface and Xbox, their Azure cloud platform grew 50% year-on-year. Initially, Microsoft Teams started the uptick in revenue with huge adoption at the start of the year surpassing 44million daily active users. In Q2 however, a significant increase in cloud computing services became apparent with Microsoft recording a 39% growth in Dynamics 365 while Intelligent Cloud and Microsoft’s server business both grew 23%.
These results highlight how Microsoft’s diversity of services has managed to navigate the coronavirus pandemic positively, where other cloud providers, most notably IBM, have struggled. The growth in Azure and cloud services further suggests that remote working is likely to be an integral part of working culture, even in a post-pandemic world.