(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (O:MSFT) reported a 27.8 percent increase in quarterly profit on Thursday, lifted by robust demand for its cloud computing services.
The company's net income rose to $4.80 billion, or 61 cents per share, in the third quarter ended March 31, from $3.76 billion, or 47 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue on an adjusted basis climbed 6 percent to $23.56 billion.
Under Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who took the helm in 2014, Microsoft has sharpened its focus on the fast-growing cloud computing unit to counter a prolonged slowdown in the PC market, which has weighed on demand for its Windows software.
The company's flagship cloud computing platform, Azure, competes with Amazon.com Inc's (O:AMZN) Amazon Web Services, the market leader in cloud infrastructure.