Microsoft stock pumps after it sees two years of digital transformation in two months

Microsoft just dropped its earnings for the first quarter of 2020 and — as one might expect — worldwide coronavirus lockdowns were great for its bottom line.

The Redmond tech giant posted $35 billion revenue and $10.8 billion net income in Q1, up 15% and 22% respectively when compared with the corresponding period last year.

[Read: Microsoft reportedly plans to invest in India’s payments giant Paytm]

Microsoft’s commercial cloud arm grew fast, up 39% year-on-year to hit $13.3 billion. In fact, Microsoft’s flagship cloud platform Azure posted 59% more revenue than in the same quarter in 2019.

CEO Satya Nadella commented that the company has seen “two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

The company’s career-orientated social hellscape LinkedIn is also making more money, with revenue up 21%.

No coronavirus bump for Microsoft’s Xbox

One might’ve thought home entertainment system Xbox would be making big bucks for Microsoft, especially with most of the world’s school systems effectively closed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Still, Xbox content and services revenue only rose by 2%. Microsoft Surface experienced similar, subtle growth, with its revenue up by 1%.

All things considered, its shareholders are likely to be well pleased. Microsoft said it returned $9.9 billion to shareholders in the form of share buy-backs or dividends, with those rewards increasing 33% compared with the third quarter of the 2019 fiscal year.

Traders too responded positively to the news, with $MSFT up 4.5% at Wednesday’s market close.