Microsoft (MSFT) reported third-quarter results on Thursday, with both revenue and bottom line beating analysts' expectations.
“Microsoft Copilot and the Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation to drive better business outcomes across every role and industry,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.
Microsoft's stock price rose 5% following the announcement.
Microsoft reported earnings per share (EPS) of $2.94 and revenue of $61.9 billion. Wall Street had expected EPS of $2.83 and revenue of $60.88 billion, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Microsoft's overall commercial cloud revenue was $35.1 billion, beating Wall Street expectations of $33.93 billion. On a segment basis, Microsoft's Productivity and Business Processes revenue came in at $19.57 billion, beating expectations of $19.54 billion. Revenues from Intelligent Cloud and More Personal Computing were $26.71 billion and $15.58 billion, respectively. This exceeded analysts' expectations of $26.25 billion and $15.07 billion, respectively.
Microsoft stock has risen more than 10% since the beginning of the year, trailing rivals like Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN), which are up 15% and 22%, respectively. . Over the past 12 months, Microsoft's stock is up 32%, while Amazon is up 67% and Google is up 47%.
The three companies will decide which can provide the most comprehensive AI solutions to their enterprise customers and customers, whether by investing heavily in third-party companies like OpenAI and Anthropic or restructuring internal teams like Google. are fighting.
Microsoft's AI ambitions received a healthy boost on Tuesday as Coca-Cola (KO) announced it had signed a five-year, $1.1 billion deal to use AI technology with the software giant's Azure cloud services. .
“Through our long-term partnership, we have made significant progress in accelerating system-wide AI transformation across The Coca-Cola Company and our network of independent bottlers around the world,” said Microsoft Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. said Judson Althoff in a statement.
Since we first announced improved Bing and AI chatbots in February 2023, we have continued to release new AI features and services for enterprise and productivity apps and consumer platforms.
In March, Microsoft announced that it had hired Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind AI and Inflection AI, Karén Simonyan, also co-founder of Inflection AI, and a number of the company's staff. Suleiman will take up a new role as CEO of Microsoft's AI division.
In February, Microsoft announced a multi-year partnership with French AI startup Mistral that will allow Microsoft to offer its models on the Azure platform.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter @Daniel Howley.
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