Cloud growth buoys Microsoft even as revenue shrinks

Microsoft's cloud successes buoyed the company through its last quarter, which was otherwise a mixed financial bag.

Revenue fell more than 12 percent from a year earlier to $20.4 billion, though profit grew almost 2 percent to $4.62 billion. 

Like other companies, Microsoft cited currency exchange rates for its revenue drop. They had a pronounced effect on some of the company's key metrics. For example, Office commercial products and cloud services revenue declined 2 percent, but grew by 5 percent when evaluated on a "constant currency" basis, which is a metric designed to smooth over the impacts of currency fluctuations.

If there was one other albatross around Microsoft's neck, it was its "More Personal Computing" segment, which includes Windows licensing and phone hardware. Revenue for that segment declined 17 percent to $9.38 billion. Currency accounted for part of that, but phone hardware sales hit the division hard. They were down 58 percent year-over-year. That reflects the company's reduced focus on phones. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was cutting 7,800 jobs, primarily in its phone hardware division.

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