Microsoft’s Stock Rises 9% As Financial Results Top Estimates

Microsoft’s (MSFT) stock is up nearly 10% after the technology giant reported financial results for this year’s first quarter that topped Wall Street estimates.The Seattle-based company announced earnings per share (EPS) of $3.46 U.S., which beat forecasts that called for $3.22 U.S. Revenue in the period totaled $70.07 billion U.S., which was ahead of the $68.42 billion U.S. estimated among analysts. Overall sales were up 13% from a year earlier.The company said that revenue from its Azure cloud computing unit grew 33% during Q1, with 16 percentage points of that growth coming from artificial intelligence (AI). Analysts had forecast 30% Azure revenue growth.The company’s Intelligent Cloud unit that includes Azure produced $26.75 billion U.S. in sales, up 21% year-over-year.Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment, which contains Office software subscriptions and LinkedIn, contributed $29.94 billion U.S. in revenue, up 10% from a year ago. Revenue from the More Personal Computing unit that contains Windows, search advertising, devices, and the Xbox video game console, came in at $13.37 billion U.S., an increase of 6%. Microsoft remains focused on advancing it’s A.I. technologies, committing to spend $80 billion U.S. in capital on A.I. data centers in the current fiscal year. Prior to today (May 1), the stock of Microsoft had declined 6% this year to trade at $395.26 U.S. per share.