Technology giant Microsoft Corporation MSFT reported first-quarter financial results after market close Wednesday.
Revenue from Azure cloud business increased by 22% as company focuses attention on artificial intelligence
Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations across its key financial metrics for its first quarter of fiscal 2025, as artificial intelligence contributed 12 percentage points, a new high, to a 33% increase in the company's Azure cloud revenue.
Microsoft's third calendar quarter earnings were the most robust in the company's five-decade history, as the Washington-based computing colossus enjoys a bump from the next generation of technological innovation in generative artificial intelligence.
Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue on Wednesday as efforts to build out data center capacity and AI-driven demand boosted its cloud business.
Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT)'s AI efforts will draw focus when the technology giant delivers its first quarter fiscal 2025 earnings after Wednesday's closing bell, Wedbush analysts believe. The Street will be watching to gauge the adoption of Microsoft's AI assistant Copilot and monetization of its AI initiatives, analysts wrote in a note to clients.
Yesterday Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) announced a plan to develop four nuclear reactors in Washington State. It's just the latest in a sudden barrage of nuclear power announcements from big tech companies. Google parent company Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) is developing small modular nuclear reactors it hopes to have online by 2030. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) recently signed a deal to bring Three Mile Island back online to power its data centers.
Microsoft is expected to show year-over-year revenue growth of about 14% in its quarterly report on Wednesday. The software company's stock is up 15% this year as of Tuesday's close, underperforming the Nasdaq, which has gained 25%.
They seemed to come in a rapid-fire wave, tech companies announcing they were splitting their stock.
UPDATE—Oct. 30, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect more recent analyst estimates and share price information.
Everyone considers Microsoft as one of the AI winners. Investors also appreciate the growing cloud business. However, while these two segments represent two cornerstones of MSFT, a third segment is often overlooked, though growing.
Google-parent Alphabet's breakout cloud sales in the July-September quarter bode well for top cloud providers Microsoft and Amazon.com , and signal that market for AI-aided computing power is only growing.