Microsoft’s gaming business is based on Activision Blizzard, but other areas are doing well

Microsoft has published its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024. The company’s revenue grew by 17% to $61.9 billion, and net profit by 20% to $21.9 billion. This was reported by The Verge.

Revenue from the company’s gaming divisions is falling, but Office and Microsoft Cloud saw a 23% increase over last year, and Windows license revenue also increased by 11%, despite not very high preliminary forecasts.

“This quarter Microsoft Cloud revenue was $35.1 billion, up 23% year over year, driven by strong execution by our sales teams and partners,” says Microsoft CFO Amy Hood.

Thanks to Activision Blizzard, Xbox’s revenues from services and content grew by 62%, but console sales fell by 31%. Overall, revenue from games grew by 51%, again thanks to Activision Blizzard, but despite this, the business dropped to fourth place.

Device sales, including Surface, also fell by 17%. Revenue from device sales has been falling for the past 12 months despite the change of Surface’s CEO and the launch of new devices.

The company is expected to unveil new Surface devices powered by Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips on May 20 at a special AI and Surface event.

As Amy Goode notes, Microsoft now expects device revenue to decline again in Q4. Windows licensing revenue growth should be in the low to mid-single digits, as PC market volumes are expected to remain at pre-pandemic levels.

Amy Goode also says that Xbox revenue will decline in the next quarter. Revenues from games will be around 40%, also with a large impact from Activision Blizzard. Revenue from Xbox content and services will grow by 50%.