Microsoft in its fiscal fourth quarter it beat analysts' expectations, but this was the case for the sectors most followed by investors: i cloud services which are related to the business of'artificial intelligence. These in fact disappointed slightly, with the crucial division in particular Azure which showed a growth of 29%, lower than the 31% of the previous three months, also lower than the expectations of 30%. Amy Hood, Microsoft CFO, said that the Azure growth will accelerate in the second semester.
The data was communicated after the close of trading and wall street, but the nervousness was palpable throughout the entire tech sector: so the Microsoft title which yesterday closed at -0,89% after having also reached -7%, share down 3% this morning. The group's shares are still up 12% since the beginning of the year, but have fallen 6% in a month. The entire technology index Nasdaq, already under pressure for weeks, closed yesterday with a decline of 1,3% while this morning it gains 1,46% and also Nvidia which during the session yesterday, Tuesday, lost 7% this morning in the after market and at +5 %. The Dow Jones closed yesterday at +0,5%.
Profits growing by 10% and turnover by 15%
Microsoft reported quarterly net profits of 22,04 billion dollars, in del% increase 10 and equal to $2,95 per share. The results exceeded Wall Street's expectations: on average the 15 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected earnings of $2,90 per share. The Redmond company also registered a turnover increased by 15% to 64,73 billion dollars, exceeding estimates that anticipated 64,19 billion dollars.
Growth was driven, despite everything, by the business of cloud computing, where as a whole quarterly revenue increased 21% to 36,8 billion dollars. The so-called “Intelligent Cloud” activity, more connected to AI, reported a increase of 19% to 28,5 billion.
The bet on AI continues: investments doubled to 10 billion
The company does not report revenues specifically deriving from artificial intelligence products, because, it underlines, the new technology is now an integral part of all its business segments, not only cloud computing, but also Office software and the Windows operating system. Much of its generative AI technology was built as part of its investments of 13 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGpt.
After all, they continue investments of Microsoft precisely on AI: in the quarter they amounted to 19 billion, almost doubled since last year. The CEO Satya Nadella he said he is “motivated by the opportunities before us. We are investing for the long term in our fundamentals, our innovation and our human talent.”
Hood: “Azure will accelerate in the second quarter”
Il CFO Amy Hood However, he specified that in the past three months the cloud activities of Azure have been affected by both difficulties in some European markets, unrelated to AI, which of obstacles in artificial intelligence at the level of hardware. “We are limited in our AI capabilities, so we have contracted third parties to help us,” Hood said. “We are investing heavily to achieve a more balanced position and Azure will accelerate in the second semester". Azure, Microsoft says, received 8 percentage points of growth from AI, more than the 7 points in the previous quarter.
Revenues deriving from so-called services productivity of Microsoft, such as the product line Office Manager, rose 11% to $20,3 billion. The activity of personal computing of Microsoft, focused on operating system licensing Windows, earned $15,9 billion in the quarter, up 14% from last year.
