Microsoft exceeds expectations FinanceAffairs.com

The issue is updated

Microsoft presented its fourth-quarter numbers on Tuesday. The tech giant had sales of $62 billion and earned $2.93 per share. Thus, trading value increased by 17.6% compared to the same quarter of last year.

In advance, analysts expected sales volume of $61.2 billion and earnings per share of $2.78. The tech giant said in October that revenue would ultimately range between $60.4 billion and $61.4 billion.

– CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement: – By integrating AI into all layers of technology infrastructure, we are winning new customers and helping to create new benefits and productivity gains across sectors.

Sales of Azure cloud services rose 30 percent, compared to growth of 29 percent in the previous quarter. Analysts had previously expected growth of 27.7 percent. CFO Amy Hood believes Azure's growth increased by six percent due to increased demand for AI services. It believes that increased interest in AI products will lead to increased customer investment in core services such as storage and data processing at Microsoft.

In after-market trading, the stock fell by about 1.25 percent, after falling by 0.3 percent in regular trading. So far this year, Microsoft's share has risen by about nine percent. Earlier in January, Apple claimed its position as the world's most valuable company.

During the quarter, Microsoft completed the acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, its largest deal ever. The company also announced custom cloud chips and began selling an AI add-on called Copilot in the Microsoft 365 software suite.

But the downsizing continued. Microsoft subsidiary LinkedIn cut about 700 jobs in October, on top of the 10,000 jobs it announced earlier in the year. Microsoft announced last week that it would lay off about 1,900 employees in its gaming unit, equivalent to about 9 percent of its workforce, after its acquisition of Avtivision.