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Microsoft's financial success is increasingly tied to its cloud services unit, constituting 55% of total revenue, or $65.5 billion out of $118.5 billion generated between July and December 2023.
Microsoft reported its December quarter numbers that beat on both revenue and profit but issued lighter revenue guidance for 2024. The company's shares are up almost 70% over the past year, and they're 11% higher in 2024 so far.
I wrote about Microsoft's results last week but it is such a diverse behemoth that I thought I would share a few extra highlights from the latest release. Previously, I focused on the future of AI but I can assure you, their existing businesses are still in great shape. Take a look at how many parts there are to this company, in the image below.
The mighty Microsoft released excellent results on Tuesday night. The market liked what it saw, and the stock rose in a very weak market yesterday. Revenues beat guidance by 3.5%, thanks to some great numbers from the powerhouse cloud service, Azure.
Microsoft reported its second-quarter numbers on Tuesday with both revenues and profits ahead of expectations. Revenue growth slowed to 7% for the full year, compared to 18% last year, and was the slowest rate in seven years. To be fair, it's been an exceptional run under CEO Satya Nadella.
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for $69 billion is moving forward after the FTC's injunction was denied a final appeal. The deal will likely close soon if Microsoft can address concerns raised by the UK competition watchdog regarding a potential cloud streaming monopoly.
Microsoft posted better top and bottom line numbers than analysts expected. If the company holds onto the 9% after-hours gain, it will be trading at a one-year high and very near the all-time high seen at the end of 2021.
Microsoft has unveiled a new Teams version which is twice as fast. The new software is less demanding of computer resources, meaning older PCs can still run it. Microsoft wants Teams to be quick to open and start a meeting.
Last week, Microsoft announced that they have already begun testing their new product, 365 Copilot, which integrates AI with their office suite of products. Currently, 20 large customers are trialling the product, after which Microsoft will announce the public rollout, along with the pricing.
A few days ago Microsoft Azure unveiled a very powerful virtual machine series that will accelerate their generative artificial intelligence services. What was even more exciting about the announcement was the amount of Nvidia GPUs they purchased to power the machine.
The latest results from Amazon, Microsoft and Google indicated a slowdown in cloud-hosting revenue growth. Of course, the base of these businesses is getting bigger, so growth rates must slow over time. But it is clear that economic conditions have resulted in a recent hesitancy in cloud spending from customers.
Tech titan Microsoft reported its quarterly results on Tuesday night. Remember that the Redmond, Washington-based group has a diversified business that spans corporate and consumer software, cloud services, video game systems and even online advertising. It has over 220 000 employees lead by CEO Satya Nadella (pictured below).
Some years ago, sending a letter required the use of a typewriter and the postal service. Then MS Word and Outlook came along and significantly improved the process. Here's another example: to prepare company accounts or analyse financial data required a team of people to record the numbers on paper, and then run manual calculations. Now MS Excel does all of that with one person and a few clicks of a button.
Microsoft was one of the many tech companies to release results last week. They reported a very strong set of numbers, beating analyst expectations for both revenue and profits. The stock market is more concerned with the future than the past though. Weak guidance, due partly to a strong US Dollar and weak PC sales, meant that the stock dropped 6% after the results.
Last week Microsoft released great results. Revenues increased 12% versus this time last year and would have grown by 16% if the USD had not been so strong. Net income grew 2% to $16.7 billion; this is a hugely profitable business.