In its third quarter of its 2017 financial year, Microsoft posted revenue of $22.1 billion, up 8 percent year-on-year, with an operating income of $5.6 billion, up 6 percent on a year ago, net income of $5.7 billion, up 28 percent, and earnings per share of $0.61, an increase of 30 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

As ever, Microsoft also offered alternative figures that book Windows 10 revenue up front instead of amortized over several years, and which hold exchange rates constant to remove the impact of rate fluctuations year-on-year (which gives some indication of year-to-year changes in actual sales transactions, if not of money in the bank). This quarter the currency differences are for the most part small, with an impact of only about 1 percent (the dollar was weaker than Microsoft expected), but Windows revenue deferral continues to be significant. Under these adjusted figures, revenue was $23.6 billion, up 7 percent, operating income was $7.1 billion, up 5 percent, net income was $5.7 billion, an increase of 16 percent, and earnings per share were $0.73, a 19 percent increase.

Microsoft currently has three reporting segments: Productivity and Business Processes (covering Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, and Dynamics), Intelligent Cloud (including Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, and Enterprise Services), and More Personal Computing (covering Windows, hardware, and Xbox, as well as search and advertising).