04:38 PM EDT, 04/25/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Microsoft ( MSFT ) late Thursday reported stronger-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results as a double-digit gain in its cloud business helped boost the technology giant's overall revenue.

Per-share earnings increased to $2.94 during the three months ended March 31 from $2.45 a year earlier, higher than the GAAP consensus on Capital IQ for $2.84. Revenue rose 17% to $61.86 billion, exceeding Wall Street's $60.89 billion view.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares gained 5.4% in after-hours trade.

Cloud revenue advanced 23% to $35.1 billion, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in a statement.

The intelligent cloud segment's sales jumped 21% annually to $26.71 billion, driven by a 31% surge in cloud-computing platform Azure and other cloud services, Microsoft ( MSFT ) said. The productivity and business processes division reported a 12% sales increase to $19.57 billion, buoyed by gains in Office 365 commercial and LinkedIn.

Revenue in the "more personal computing" unit increased 17% to $15.58 billion due to gains in Windows and Xbox, weighed down by a 17% slide in devices revenue.

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