REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft reported Tuesday that its earnings increased 9% for the January-March quarter. This is because cloud computing revenue growth has helped strengthen plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence.
The company posted quarterly earnings of $18.3 billion, or $2.45 per share, beating Wall Street’s forecast of $2.24 per share.
The software maker had revenue of $52.9 billion in the third quarter, up 7% from the same period last year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect Microsoft to book his $51.02 billion in sales in the fourth quarter.
The quarter leveraged investments in artificial intelligence and a close partnership with San Francisco-based startup OpenAI to bring New AI chatbot feature in search engine Bing.
Microsoft is also integrating similar AI tools into the cloud computing and software products it sells to large enterprises and organizations, but it’s not immediately clear what role AI capabilities play in overall sales. yeah.
Microsoft’s Windows software-led personal computing business was widely expected to continue the deterioration that began last year due to economic uncertainty and shrinking demand. Quarterly sales in that segment fell 9% to $13.3 billion, the company said Tuesday.
Offsetting that decline was a 16% increase in revenue from Microsoft’s cloud-based business segment to $22.1 billion in the quarter. Revenue from Microsoft’s productivity software segment, which is centered on office suites of office products such as email, also rose 11% to his $17.5 billion.
