Proactive Investors - Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock moved higher as its quarterly earnings impressed the market, with revenue up 13% year-over-year to $56.5 billion driven by its cloud division and its adoption of AI services powered by partner OpenAI.
The revenue performance comfortably surpassed Wall Street analyst consensus of $54.4 billion.
Earnings meanwhile improved some 27% to $2.99 per share which also easily beat forecasts, with consensus pitched at $2.65.
Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform, performed particularly well with revenue growth marked at a better-than-expected 29% - meanwhile the cloud division as a whole banked $31.8 billion or revenue, up 24% on the same period last year.
Microsoft also noted “consistent execution” of its sales teams and partners in the group’s strong start to the fiscal year, meanwhile, chief executive Satya Nadella talked up the role of AI adoption across the Microsoft suite.
“We are making the age of AI real for people and businesses everywhere," Nadella said in a statement.
"We are rapidly infusing AI across every layer of the tech stack and for every role and business process to drive productivity gains for our customers.”
Wedbush analysts called the cloud growth in the quarter "massive,” adding that Microsoft’s 1Q earnings were a “home run” as the company rapidly infuses AI across the entire tech stack.
"We believe that over 50% of the MSFT installed base will ultimately use the AI functionality for the enterprise/commercial landscape which represents a major monetization opportunity, and we are now seeing this play out as we head into year-end," the analysts said in a note.
Looking ahead, Microsoft also pleased the market with a similarly strong outlook for the second quarter with finance chief Amy Hood pitching revenue guidance in the range of $60.4 billion to $61.4 billion, slightly ahead of the $60.9bn penciled in on Wall Street.
In New York, Microsoft stock was up 3.65% in Wednesday’s early premarket with the price marked at $342.58.