Microsoft's results exceed expectations
Thanks to artificial intelligence
Microsoft's results in the third quarter of the year exceeded Wall Street estimates, as its business in cloud computing and computers grew, amid customer enthusiasm for its products in the field of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft has not yet released most of the products it developed with OpenAI, the creator of the ChatGBT chatbot, after it supported it financially and cooperated with it initially.
But enthusiasm among corporate technology buyers for features like the ability to summarize piles of email into a few bullet points, or help write computer code quickly, helped the company's revenue rise 13% to $56.5 billion in the quarter ended September 30.
LSEG data indicates that the American technology giant's revenues exceeded analysts' estimates by reaching $54.52 billion.
“The results indicate that AI products drive sales and actually contribute to overall and bottom-line growth,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com.
Microsoft shares jumped 4.2% in after-hours trading.
The secret in cloud computing
LSEG data showed that revenues from Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud unit rose to $24.3 billion, compared to analysts' estimates of $23.49 billion.
(Intelligent Cloud) includes the cloud computing platform (Azure), which carries out most of the artificial intelligence work. (Azure) revenues increased by 29%, which is higher than the 26.2% that the market research company (Visible Alpha) expected.
As for profits, Microsoft said that third-quarter earnings amounted to $2.99 per share, which is higher than analysts’ estimates of $2.65 per share.
Microsoft said search and news advertising revenues increased 10%.
Microsoft is working to integrate artificial intelligence into its own products, such as CoPilot, a $30-a-month program for its Microsoft 365 service that can summarize daily emails in a quick update.
Sales of the Windows operating system and other products in this sector grew to $13.7 billion, compared to analyst estimates of $12.82 billion.
