Microsoft Beats Expectations Thanks To AI Investments

Microsoft has pleased Wall Street as it continues to reaps the rewards of its heavy investment into the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

The software and cloud giant posted notable increases in both profits and revenues for its third quarter period, as its AI investments helped deliver impressive growth.

Microsoft’s share price rose 7.8 percent on Friday morning to $406.90. In January Microsoft briefly overtook Apple as the most valuable tech firm in the world.

But today Microsoft is well ahead of Apple, with a stock market value above $3 trillion.

Q3 Financials

Shares in Microsoft have increased by more than 30 percent over the past year.

Examining Microsoft’s latest financial results, it is easy to see why.

For Microsoft’s third quarter ending 31 March, the software giant recorded a 20 percent increase in net profit to $21.9 billion from $18.3 billion in the same year-ago quarter.

Revenue increased 17 percent to $61.9 billion from $52.9 billion a year earlier.

This exceeded investor consensus estimate of $60.8 billion, according to LSEG data.

“Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft.

Segment performance

There was increases across most of Microsoft’s portfolio, helped by the fact that Redmond has special access to OpenAI’s AI tech, and has integrated this tech across its product portfolio.

For example revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $19.6 billion -an increased 12 percent thanks to:

• Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 13 percent driven by Office 365 Commercial revenue growth of 15 percent;
• Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 4 percent and Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers grew to 80.8 million;
• LinkedIn revenue increased 10 percent;
• Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 19 percent driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 23 percent.

Microsoft also posted posted a 21 percent in revenue in Intelligent Cloud up to $26.7 billion, thanks to server products and cloud services revenue increasing 24 percent, driven by Azure and other cloud services revenue growth of 31 percent.

Meanwhile revenue in More Personal Computing rose 17 percent to $15.6 billion, helped by a 11 percent rise in Windows revenue; a 62 percent increase in Xbox content and service revenue; and a 12 percent rise in search and news advertising revenue.

However Microsoft’s devices revenue decreased 17 percent.

Microsoft in addition returned $8.4 billion to shareholders.