Research archive for MSFT

Microsoft reported its second-quarter numbers on Tuesday with both revenues and profits ahead of expectations. Revenue growth slowed to 7% for the full year, compared to 18% last year, and was the slowest rate in seven years. To be fair, it's been an exceptional run under CEO Satya Nadella.

The acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for $69 billion is moving forward after the FTC's injunction was denied a final appeal. The deal will likely close soon if Microsoft can address concerns raised by the UK competition watchdog regarding a potential cloud streaming monopoly.

Microsoft posted better top and bottom line numbers than analysts expected. If the company holds onto the 9% after-hours gain, it will be trading at a one-year high and very near the all-time high seen at the end of 2021.

Microsoft has unveiled a new Teams version which is twice as fast. The new software is less demanding of computer resources, meaning older PCs can still run it. Microsoft wants Teams to be quick to open and start a meeting.

Last week, Microsoft announced that they have already begun testing their new product, 365 Copilot, which integrates AI with their office suite of products. Currently, 20 large customers are trialling the product, after which Microsoft will announce the public rollout, along with the pricing.

A few days ago Microsoft Azure unveiled a very powerful virtual machine series that will accelerate their generative artificial intelligence services. What was even more exciting about the announcement was the amount of Nvidia GPUs they purchased to power the machine.

The latest results from Amazon, Microsoft and Google indicated a slowdown in cloud-hosting revenue growth. Of course, the base of these businesses is getting bigger, so growth rates must slow over time. But it is clear that economic conditions have resulted in a recent hesitancy in cloud spending from customers.

Tech titan Microsoft reported its quarterly results on Tuesday night. Remember that the Redmond, Washington-based group has a diversified business that spans corporate and consumer software, cloud services, video game systems and even online advertising. It has over 220 000 employees lead by CEO Satya Nadella (pictured below).

Some years ago, sending a letter required the use of a typewriter and the postal service. Then MS Word and Outlook came along and significantly improved the process. Here's another example: to prepare company accounts or analyse financial data required a team of people to record the numbers on paper, and then run manual calculations. Now MS Excel does all of that with one person and a few clicks of a button.

Microsoft was one of the many tech companies to release results last week. They reported a very strong set of numbers, beating analyst expectations for both revenue and profits. The stock market is more concerned with the future than the past though. Weak guidance, due partly to a strong US Dollar and weak PC sales, meant that the stock dropped 6% after the results.

Last week Microsoft released great results. Revenues increased 12% versus this time last year and would have grown by 16% if the USD had not been so strong. Net income grew 2% to $16.7 billion; this is a hugely profitable business.

On Tuesday night Microsoft released its strongest set of numbers since the start of the pandemic. This was thanks to an increase in demand for server products and cloud-connected services. For the quarter from January to March, the company saw revenues rise 18% to $49.4 billion, and its net income climb 8% to $16.7 billion.

The Windows Experience blog ran a cool feature article titled A new era for the PC last week. If anyone has the data on PC behaviour, it is Windows.

Microsoft posted better than expected numbers for the 12th straight quarter on Tuesday evening. These days, strong companies are expected to beat expectations. Microsoft managed to post revenue of $52 billion, up 20% from a year ago. This was the first time that they managed to cross $50 billion for a quarter, which is amazingly fast growth off an already large base.

Which companies in the US do you think added the most value this year? Off the bat, high fliers like Tesla and Nvidia come to mind but remember they are coming off a smaller base. According to journalist Jon Erlichman, the title for 2021 goes to Microsoft. As of 13 December, Microsoft added $890 billion to its market cap. The next biggest were Google and Apple. We own all six on that list shown below, in client portfolios.