Investing.com – Microsoft on Thursday reported third-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations, as strong demand for artificial intelligence supported better-than-expected results from its cloud business Azure.
Following the news, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:) rose more than 4% in after-hours trading.
The company reported earnings of $2.94 per share and sales of $61.9 billion for the three months ended March 31. Analyst estimates compiled by Investing.com were for EPS of $2.82 and revenue of $60.84 billion.
Azure and other cloud services grew 31% year over year in the third quarter, beating analyst expectations of 28.6%. As tech giants continue to increase their AI spending, the gap with AI is widening, with around 7% of growth coming from artificial intelligence. those rivals.
Investing.com senior analyst Thomas Monteiro said Thursday: “This shows that the company is currently leaps and bounds ahead of its peers in areas that are important to the market, and most importantly, There is no doubt that we are on the right path to expanding this.” .
“While several tech companies have been unable to continue to grow at the same pace as in past quarters due to significantly compressed margins on both the cost and revenue side, Microsoft's AI and cloud growth numbers “It shows that we were able to get through this quarter step by step,” Monteiro said.
Personal Computing segment revenue rose 17% year-over-year to $15.6 billion in the third quarter, further underscoring the company's ability to diversify its revenue streams and withstand potential economic hardship. .
Monteiro added that Microsoft's “numerous highly profitable and global operations place the tech giant well-positioned for possible future macroeconomic challenges.”
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