Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud sees continued upward trend as Azure revenue grows 120%

We’ve already covered the financial performance of Microsoft’s More Personal Computing and Productivity and Business Processes divisions. Now, it’s time to consider the linchpin of the company’s “cloud-first, mobile-first” strategy, the Intelligent Cloud division. Fortunately for the company, that division as well achieved some growth in FY16 Q3.

Including Server, Azure, and Enterprise Mobility, the division performed fairly well:

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud grew 3% (up 8% in constant currency) to $6.1 billion, with the following business highlights:

• Server products and cloud services revenue increased 5% in constant currency driven by double-digit annuity revenue growth
• Azure revenue grew 120% in constant currency with usage of Azure compute and Azure SQL database more than doubling year-over-year
• Enterprise Mobility customers more than doubled year-over-year to over 27,000, and the installed base grew nearly 4x year-over-year

Clearly, the cloud is important to Microsoft as they transition away from “the Windows company” into something dramatically different. It’s cloud revenues that will be relied upon to make up for losses in Windows sales, and so it’s a huge positive that this division continues to perform.