On Wednesday, Microsoft reported sales of $32.47 billion for the quarter ending December, falling short of analysts’ estimates.
Nevertheless, revenues were +12% higher compared to the year-ago period. A large part of the sales growth can be attributed to the tech giant’s cloud computing business which grew +48% year-over-year to touch $9 billion in the quarter.
Microsoft has been increasingly steering focus towards its commercial cloud segment Azure, which is apparently a strong competitor to Amazon Web Services. Microsoft recently announced a deal to become pharmacy retail company Walgreens' cloud provider, wherein it intends to improve data processing on customers' health conditions and therefore potentially enable pharmacists to offer better pharmacy/wellness solutions.