2024-01-30 22:21:47
Microsoft continues to take advantage of AI.Unsplash
The American computer group Microsoft published better-than-expected results for the fourth quarter this Tuesday, driven by remote computing (cloud) and with its highest growth in revenue since 2022. This specific cloud sector, stimulated by the explosion of Generative artificial intelligence (AI), largely explains a turnover of $62 billion between October and December, the second quarter of the firm’s fiscal year.
This is an increase of 18% in the year-on-year comparison that places revenues above the 61.1 billion expected by analysts, according to AFP.
In terms of profits, Microsoft added 44,161 million dollars (40,718 million euros) in the six months between July and December, 30% more year-on-year, while its cloud business, the most profitable, continued to grow.
The company created by Bill Gates and directed by Satya Nadella, indicated in a statement that its accumulated turnover in the last fiscal semester – it does not follow the natural calendar – amounted to 118,537 million dollars, 15% more compared to the same period of the year. past.
By business areas, most of the revenue corresponded to the intelligent cloud (50,139 million) and products for companies and for improving productivity (37,841 million), although the personal computing segment also rose (30,557 million), collects Efe. Regarding the annual comparison, improvements of 20%, 13% and 19% were noted, although the last segment includes the purchase of Activision, closed on October 13 and which, in turn, improves the section. dedicated to Xbox by 61% compared to the previous year.
Other large business lines such as Linkedin improved their total income as of December of last year by 9%.
“We have moved from talking about AI to applying it at scale,” said Satya Nadella, president and CEO of Microsoft. “By infusing AI into every layer of our technology stack, we are winning new customers and helping to drive new benefits and productivity gains across industries,” he added, according to the press release.
“Strong execution by our sales teams and partners drove Microsoft Cloud revenue to $33.7 billion, up 24% year over year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Microsoft.
CEO Satya Nadella has promised to make Microsoft an artificial intelligence powerhouse by partnering with leading startup OpenAI. These efforts received a boost during the quarter thanks to the launch of AI-based Office for business software.
Cloud services that allow corporate customers to build their own AI applications on top of OpenAI technology also drove demand for Azure. Still, some investors might have been expecting a bigger jump in the cloud division, given all the enthusiasm for new tools and Microsoft’s focus on pushing them to customers. Shares fell about 1% in trading after the results were released.
“In the software space, everyone is playing catch-up with Microsoft,” said Dan Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co. “The cloud data center is the hottest space for AI and only place where we can see a real rebound in terms of AI. But it is not enough to offset secular trends: we have not returned to 50 or 60% growth in Azure,” he adds, according to Bloomberg.
Microsoft shares fell to $401.50 during the day and closed at $408.59 in New York. The shares had risen 19% in the last three months of 2023, compared to an 11% rise in the S&P 500 index in what seemed a sign of market confidence in Microsoft’s progress.
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