Cloud, business software and AI push sees Microsoft results hit new high

Microsoft revenue is up, shareholder confidence down

News By Craig Hale published 31 October 2024

Microsoft’s first-quarter figures for its 2025 financial year have exceeded expectations, but rather than having a positive impact on share prices, stock is down over future concerns.

Q1 2025 revenue stood at $65.6 billion, marking a 16% increase and a $1 billion jump over prior Wall Street projections. Operating income was also up by 14% to $30.6 billion.

However, despite the strong performance, company stock declined 4% in after-hours trading, likely as a result of slower-than-anticipated growth projections for the next three-month period.

Microsoft just had a strong quarter, but the next might not be so good

Company CEO Satya Nadella commented: “AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process,” indicating that Redmond’s cloud efforts are responsible for much of the ongoing growth.

“Strong execution by our sales teams and partners delivered a solid start to our fiscal year with Microsoft Cloud revenue of $38.9 billion,” said CFO Amy Hood. Microsoft Cloud’s $38.9 billion in quarterly revenue marks a considerable 22% year-over-year increase.

Besides its core cloud division, Microsoft noted that LinkedIn’s revenue had increased 10% and Microsoft 365 Commercial products and cloud services had grown by 13% – these are two areas of the business that have been infused with artificial intelligence in recent months, following billions of dollars of investment by the firm.

However, despite predicting continued growth to the tune of between $68.1 billion and $69.1 billion in the next financial quarter, shareholders have been stripped of confidence that the tech giant will continue to deliver such strong performance, leading stock to decline. Analysts had previously projected quarterly revenue of $69.83 billion – more than the upper end of Microsoft’s latest expectation.

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