Microsoft’s net income stood at $4.6 billion dollars for the fourth quarter, down 7 per cent from $4.96 billion a year earlier, according to the company’s earnings report on Tuesday.
Sales rose by 18 per cent to $23.38 billion in the fourth quarter, said the company, based in Redmond, Washington.
Expense discipline and success with cloud-based services helped the increase in revenue, Microsoft said.
“We are galvanized around our core as a productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world, and we are driving growth with disciplined decisions, bold innovation and focused execution,” chief executive Satya Nadella said.
“I’m proud that our aggressive move to the cloud is paying off – our commercial cloud revenue doubled again this year to a $4.4-billion annual run rate.” Last week Microsoft cuts of up to 18,000 jobs as part of a restructuring plan to integrate the handset business from phone maker Nokia, which it recently took over.