American society is doing well. In particular, it can count on the cloud and video games to cover its back, even in times of health crisis.
Despite the health crisis, many companies have been able to take advantage of teleworking and successive confinements to increase their activity. This is particularly the case for big names in IT such as Microsoft. This week, the American giant took stock of its 2021 activity, and it is clear that business is going well. Without achieving the exponential results of the first half of 2021 (which reached a 44% increase), the second half will have been prolific for the firm, which records a 21% increase in profits, for a total of $18.8 billion. The company’s turnover over this period amounted to 51.7 billion dollars, for an increase of 20% compared to last year.
Thank you cloud
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is benefiting greatly from the development of telework and the rise of the cloud. Its cloud activities also benefit from an increase of 26%, while its solutions dedicated to productivity see their revenues increase by 19%, to reach $ 15.9 billion. It must be said that in addition to its hardware products, the company has been able to take the shift to the cloud, and now offers via its Microsoft 365 suite, an increasingly popular cross-platform office solution. According to figures put forward by the American giant, the number of subscribers to the online service would now reach 56.4 million.
The video game in sight
With a more than satisfactory financial balance sheet, Microsoft begins 2022 under the best auspices. Remember that in the video game sector, the firm has just acquired the giant Activision-Blizzard, promising players new exclusives on Xbox and PC. Without even mentioning the recent merger of the two giants of the video game market, Microsoft can also count on its own licenses, such as Halo and Forza. On Tuesday, company CEO Satya Nadella said that since their release, 20 million people had played Halo Infinite and 18 million people had played Forza Horizon 5. A success that also testifies to the popularity of the Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming subscription service.
