Microsoft beats expectations, fuelled by Azure cloud business

Microsoft shares popped more than 5% Wednesday afternoon after it reported better than expected revenue and profit, fuelled by its Azure cloud computing division which grew by 48% in the September quarter.

“We are delivering greater capability, choice, control, and cost efficiency for customers across our entire stack,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

The technology giant recorded US$92.3 billion in total revenue and more than US$36.6 billion in profit, the company said in a securities filing Wednesday.

Analysts had expected around US$90.6 billion in revenue and US$35.1 billion in profit, according to FactSet.

The quarterly earnings report comes just days after Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, as the tech giant spends heavily on artificial intelligence investments.

It’s the second voluntary buyout offer that Microsoft has offered employees this year, after giving seven percent of its US workforce the option to retire early in April.

Microsoft had 223,000 employees globally at the end of June, down from 228,000 at the end of 2025, according to regulatory filings.

Earlier this month, Microsoft also announced a new Surface Ultra laptop that runs on Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips and will cost more than US$2,500.

The launch is part of a broader push by tech companies to release hardware that can handle more AI computing on-device and offline, so users do not have to rely solely on remote cloud data centers, where running AI is slower and more expensive.

Microsoft will hold a call with analysts on Wednesday afternoon to discuss its quarterly results.

AI spending

One of the big questions looming over tech earnings is whether the industry’s heavy AI spending is paying off.

Analysts are expecting US$51 billion in overall spending by Microsoft from July to September, according to FactSet.

Microsoft nearly doubled its spending on “property and equipment” to US$39 billion compared to the same period last year, according to a press release.

It competes with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google parent Alphabet for cloud computing services customers.

AWS has dominated the sector and remained number one globally by revenue in the second quarter of the year, according to Synergy Research Group.

Microsoft is number two globally, followed by Google.

However, Google on Wednesday reported that revenue from its cloud division doubled to US$30.7 billion during the quarter, bringing it closer to Microsoft’s Azure revenue, which reached US$33.2 billion in the same period.

Alphabet also recently raised US$85 billion through equity offerings to fund its AI data center expansion.

On Monday, Facebook parent company Meta said it would raise US$35 billion through a stock offering to fund its own AI investments.

Tech companies are expected to collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI-related expenses this year.

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