On Friday, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced the forthcoming reduction of 3000 jobs in the process of reorganization, aimed at increasing the role of cloud services.
According to CNBC, the cuts will affect the sales department. It is said that mainly employees outside the United States will be fired.
"Microsoft is making changes to improve the quality of customer service and partners," a CNBC representative said.
The market expected more significant reductions. Microsoft's financial year ends on June 30. The company usually announces new stages of restructuring and optimization in July.
At the end of March, Microsoft employed more than 121,600 people worldwide, including around 52,000 in the global sales and marketing department.
Cloud business is a priority direction of Microsoft's development – in recent quarters it has been growing at a faster rate. The company is trying to compete with larger players in the sector, including the leader Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). Amazon’s cloud business revenue is about four times that of Microsoft Azure in 2017, according to Deutsche Bank (DE: DBKGn).
The revenue from the Intelligent Cloud division, which includes Azure cloud service and the server software business, grew 11% to $ 6.76 billion in the third fiscal quarter (January-March 2017). Sales of the service Azure soared by 93%.
Microsoft shares fell 0.8% on the Thursday session in New York.
Today, another tech giant – Samsung, said that it expects a record quarterly operating profit for April-June thanks to a boom in the memory chip market, which, according to analysts, will continue to maintain profit margins before the end of 2017.