Only a handful of companies can claim to have been at the top of their industry for decades. microsoft (MSFT 3.20%) One of them. It has dominated the technology sector since it launched the Windows operating system in 1985. Our continued success is the result of our relentless focus on innovation.
Windows was once the company’s flagship product and is still used by billions of people today, but Microsoft has evolved. The company has built a robust hardware business, a market-leading cloud computing platform, and now dominates the new frontier of artificial intelligence (AI).
AI is Microsoft’s most valuable opportunity yet, and it has already established itself as a leader in the space. Here’s how the company is applying technology and why its stock is buying like crazy right now.
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Microsoft quickly transformed into an artificial intelligence company
It’s fair to say that the hype around AI has exploded this year, but the boom in this new industry looks very real. A private company called OpenAI ignited the fuse in November 2022 when it released the latest version of his ChatGPT online chatbot. This chatbot can also answer complex questions and write computer code.
Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, putting $1 billion into the startup in 2019. In a recent success, the tech giant has agreed to a new multi-year deal worth his rumored $10 billion. This partnership has already completely transformed Microsoft’s product portfolio.
Microsoft is trying to take market share by integrating ChatGPT with the Bing search engine. alphabet‘s Google. Just two months after launch, Bing’s mobile application installations surged fourfold, and the search engine gained 100 million daily active users.
Microsoft’s search segment revenue will grow by only 10% in the third quarter of fiscal 2023 (ending March 31), suggesting it will take time for advertisers to get on board. However, management said Bing successfully increased its US market share in the third quarter.
The quarter also saw a record 300 million active users of the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform. The company continues to adopt the Teams premium version, which uses ChatGPT-powered AI to automatically generate meeting notes, and will roll out additional features soon.
The cloud shines again with the help of OpenAI
The most valuable integration between Microsoft and OpenAI (so far) may be with the Azure cloud platform. This puts OpenAI’s most advanced GPT-4 language model in close proximity to Azure’s enterprise customers, helping them develop applications using the world’s most advanced technology.
GPT-4 was released in March and is a significant improvement over its predecessor, GPT-3. In an early demonstration, a GPT-4 model was given a sketch image and asked to write the computer code necessary to create a website that looked exactly like the sketch. It obliged and was successful.
Azure remained Microsoft’s growth leader in the third quarter, with revenue up 27% year-over-year, but a slowdown compared to last year’s third quarter, when revenue increased 46%. However, the AI portion of the cloud platform hit the numbers this time around. Azure reports he has 2,500 OpenAI customers, a whopping 1,000% increase from just one quarter ago.
The success of Microsoft’s cloud business is important as its consumer segment struggles in a tough economic environment. The company experienced a 30% year-over-year decline in Xbox hardware revenue and a 30% year-over-year decline in device revenue. This includes the Surface line of notebook computers and tablets. Additionally, Windows sales fell 28% on the back of weak demand for personal computers.
Microsoft stock surges on quarterly results, but still a buy
Microsoft shares soared 7.5% the day after it announced its third quarter results. It may not sound all that impressive, but now he’s grown into a $2.2 trillion company, and the increase has increased his valuation by more than $150 billion.
The company topped earnings estimates in all three business segments, posting earnings per share (earnings) of $2.45, comfortably above analyst expectations of $2.24.
Microsoft currently has earned $9.22 per share over the last four quarters, or a price/earnings ratio (P/E) of 32.1 based on the recent $296 stock price. this is, Nasdaq-100 The stock index trades at a P/E ratio of 26.7, but AI shows so much economic potential that Microsoft stock should pay a premium.
AI companies could share a revenue pool worth $14 trillion by 2030, creating $90 trillion in corporate value, according to Ark Investment Management, run by top technology investor Kathy Wood. Microsoft has already established itself as an industry leader, so if these financial estimates come to fruition, they could capture a good chunk of that value.
Today, many pure AI companies are still in the very early stages, but Microsoft is giving investors access to this game-changing technology through a safe and successful name. Therefore, the company’s stock is currently a buy.
