(Alliance News) - Microsoft Corp on Wednesday reported better-than-expected third quarter results driven by demand for its Cloud products, including Azure.

Shares in Microsoft were 6.0% higher in after hours trading. They had earlier closed up 0.3% at USD395.26.

The Redmond, Washington software provider said net income rose 18% to USD25.82 billion in the three months to March 31 from USD21.94 billion a year prior.

Diluted earnings per share climbed 18% to USD3.46 from USD2.94, ahead of USD3.22 LSEG consensus.

Revenue jumped 13% to USD70.07 billion from USD61.86 billion a year prior, beating LSEG consensus of USD68.42 billion.

"Cloud and AI are the essential inputs for every business to expand output, reduce costs, and accelerate growth," said Satya Nadella, chair & chief executive officer.

"From AI infra and platforms to apps, we are innovating across the stack to deliver for our customers," he added.

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes rose 10% to USD29.9 billion including Microsoft 365 Commercial products and cloud services revenue growth of 11%. LinkedIn revenue increased 7%.

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was USD26.8 billion, up 21%.

Within this, server products and cloud services revenue increased 22%, driven by Azure and other cloud services revenue growth of 33%.

Revenue in More Personal Computing was USD13.4 billion, up 6%.

Microsoft will provide forward-looking guidance in connection with this quarterly earnings announcement on its earnings conference call.

By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter

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