Microsoft to increase UK prices, citing falling pound

US tech giant to increase price of enterprise cloud services by 22 per cent

Microsoft said it will be increasing pricing for its enterprise software and cloud services in the United Kingdom in the wake of the sterling's plunge since Britons voted to leave the European Union.

The price increase, from January 1st, will be 13 per cent for its enterprise software and 22 per cent for its enterprise cloud services, it said. Pricing changes will not apply to consumer software or consumer cloud services, the company said in a blog post.

The vote to leave the EU took many investors and company executives by surprise, triggering the biggest one-day fall in sterling against the dollar. The pound’s fall has affected profitability for many companies, as imported goods have become even more expensive.

Recently, Britain's biggest grocery chain, Tesco, pulled dozens of Unilever brand products from its website after a disagreement over prices, in the wake of a the slump in the British currency. Unilever had been trying to raise the prices it charges Britain's big four supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury's , Asda and Morrisons – across a wide range of goods by about 10 per cent, saying it needed to offset the higher cost of imported commodities. – (Reuters)