LOS ANGELES — In Satya Nadella’s first quarterly earnings release as chief executive, Microsoft Corp. on Thursday posted earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street expectations, offering new justification for the CEO’s focus on cloud computing.
Factoring out special items from a year ago, revenue in the January-March quarter grew 8 percent.
Net income in the quarter through March 31 came to $5.66 billion, or 68 cents per share, down from $6.06 billion, or 72 cents, a year ago.
The company also benefited from the end of support for its 13-year-old operating system, Windows XP, on April 8. Many companies upgraded computers en masse to make sure they’d continue to receive support from Microsoft.
That transition — which helped boost Windows revenue by 4 percent — helped Microsoft buck a 2-4 percent decline in shipments in the quarter as estimated by market research firm IDC.
Overall, Microsoft posted flat revenue and a decline in net income for the January-March quarter.
Revenue gains from its Windows operating system and cloud computing services like Azure were offset by the lack of special upgrade offer revenues from a year ago. Revenue was nearly unchanged at $20.40 billion.