SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft on Wednesday posted a revenue of 77.7 billion U.S. dollars for the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025, up 18 percent from the same period of the previous year.

The company generated a quarterly net income of 27.7 billion dollars, an increase of 12 percent year on year. Diluted earnings per share were 3.72 dollars, up 13 percent, compared to the same period a year ago.

Microsoft returned 10.7 billion dollars to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026.

"Our planet-scale cloud and AI factory, together with Copilots across high-value domains, is driving broad diffusion and real-world impact," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "It's why we continue to increase our investments in AI across both capital and talent to meet the massive opportunity ahead."

"We delivered a strong start to the fiscal year, exceeding expectations across revenue, operating income, and earnings per share," said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. "Continued strength in the Microsoft Cloud reflects the growing customer demand for our differentiated platform."

Its operating income was 38.0 billion dollars, an increase of 24 percent from the same period last year, Microsoft said in its financial report.

Microsoft Cloud revenue was 49.1 billion dollars, up 26 percent, while commercial remaining performance obligation increased 51 percent to 392 billion dollars.

The company's revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was 33.0 billion dollars, an increase of 17 percent; revenue in Intelligent Cloud was 30.9 billion dollars, up 28 percent; and revenue in More Personal Computing was 13.8 billion dollars, an increase of 4 percent.