Microsoft Corp.’s third-quarter profit and sales surpassed projections, fueled by resilient corporate demand for its mainstay cloud-computing software and services. Shares jumped more than 5 per cent in late trading.

Profit was US$2.45 a share in the period ended in March, and sales rose 7.1 per cent to US$52.9 billion, the software maker said in a statement Tuesday. That compared with analysts’ average estimate for US$2.24 a share in earnings and US$51 billion in revenue, according to a Bloomberg survey.

In Microsoft’s closely watched Azure cloud-computing business, revenue climbed 31 per cent excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, matching predictions. Sales from commercial cloud products like Azure and Office productivity software rose 22 per cent to US$28.5 billion, the company said.

Though total sales growth has decelerated to single digits after five years of more robust gains, Microsoft’s products like Azure and Office 365 cloud-based products continued to attract customers even as many scaled back spending in a shaky economy. To help weather the broader slowdown, Microsoft fired 10,000 workers this year, including in key businesses like Azure and security software.

The Redmond, Washington-based company has also kept clients’ attention as Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella turned to massive bets in artificial intelligence, including a reported US$10 billion of new investment into OpenAI and a new Bing internet search chatbot — a strategy to juice future sales of Azure, search ads and office-productivity programs.

“When you look at some of the other big tech stocks, Microsoft’s holding up better than those, in that they’re at least not producing negative growth,” said Dan Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co.

The company’s shares jumped as high as US$291.30 in extended trading following the report, after closing at US$275.42 in New York. The stock gained 20 per cent in the quarter on optimism for Microsoft’s new AI plans and products, compared with a 7 per cent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.