Microsoft rides another year of profitable growth

Microsoft shareholders have every reason to be happy. The last couple of years have seen Microsoft stock nearly double, with the last year alone seeing its stock go up by more than 40%. This growth is widely attributed to the efforts of CEO Satya Nadella, who was appointed to lead the company in 2014. Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer was widely criticized for missing out on global trends, namely smartphones and tablet usage and cloud.

Microsoft’s market cap crossed the milestone of $800 billion but still trails behind that of Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet, valued at $943 billion, $880 billion and $824 billion respectively. Apple seems to the clear frontrunner in the global race for corporations to reach the distinguished $1 trillion mark. For Microsoft, the $800 billion mark signals a new high, which was thought highly unlikely about four years ago.

Satya Nadella’s stint at the tech giant has seen Microsoft remarkably diversify its operations from PCs to cloud services and Mobile applications. LinkedIn, the professional networking site bought by Microsoft posted an increase of 37% in revenues. Azure, the cloud services arm of Microsoft saw an increase in its revenues by 26% and Office 365 saw its revenues grow by 38%. Things to be going pretty well for the company that given that its shares have reached the highest value since their peak in December 1999.