We will also deal with similar topics at our Portfolio Investment Day 2024 conference on May 16, in which participation is free after registration.
The main numbers of the quarter:
- Microsoft reported revenue of $61.9 billion in the January-March quarter, a 17 percent increase compared to the same period last year and beating expectations of $60.8 billion.
- among the individual segments, productivity and business processes, which includes Office, posted a 12 percent increase in revenue, intelligent cloud (servers and Azure) revenue increased by 21 percent, and the personal computers division, which includes Windows and Xbox revenues included, grew by 17 percent
- the gross coverage level rose to 70 percent
- the operating result increased by 23 percent, the EBIT margin reached 45 percent
- the net result was 21.9 billion dollars, which is a 20 percent increase from the level of the previous year, the earnings per share were $2.94, beating analysts’ expectations of $2.82
The management is forecasting a revenue of 64 billion dollars for the current quarter, which is slightly below analysts’ expectations, as the consensus is 64.5 billion dollars. However, the forecast for the level of operating profit is above market expectations, 42.3 percent instead of the consensus of 41.5 percent.
The quarterly quick report also reveals that capital investments jumped by 79 percent in the quarter from the level of a year earlier, a level of spending that has not been seen since 2016. Even with so much investment there is a gap in Microsoft’s data center infrastructure, specifically for deploying artificial intelligence models, said the company’s CFO, Amy Hood. The executive said that capital expenditures will increase significantly in the current quarter, mainly in the area of cloud infrastructure.
The quarterly results were well received by investors, they rose by nearly 4 percent shares of Microsoft.
Cover image source: Shutterstock
