Microsoft has released impressive financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2023, revealing revenue of $62 billion, marking an 18 percent increase. Operating income surged by 33 percent, reaching $27 billion, while net income experienced a similar growth rate, landing at $21.9 billion.
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023 has significantly impacted the More Personal Computing segment, contributing to Microsoft’s robust financial performance.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, emphasized the practical application of artificial intelligence (AI) at scale, stating, “By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we’re winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector.”
Amy Hood, Executive Vice President and CFO of Microsoft, attributed the stellar performance to strong execution by sales teams and partners, propelling Microsoft Cloud revenue to $33.7 billion, showcasing a remarkable 24 percent increase (22 percent in constant currency) year-over-year.
Segment-wise Highlights:
Productivity and Business Processes:
Revenue: $19.2 billion (up 13 percent)
Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue grew 15 percent, driven by a 17 percent increase in Office 365 Commercial revenue.
Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased by 5 percent, with Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers reaching 78.4 million.
LinkedIn revenue experienced a 9 percent growth.
Dynamics products and cloud services revenue surged 21 percent, fueled by a 27 percent growth in Dynamics 365 revenue.
Intelligent Cloud:
Revenue: $25.9 billion (up 20 percent)
Server products and cloud services revenue increased by 22 percent, primarily driven by a robust 30 percent growth in Azure and other cloud services revenue.
More Personal Computing:
Revenue: $16.9 billion (up 19 percent)
Windows revenue grew by 9 percent, including an 11 percent increase in Windows OEM revenue and a 9 percent growth in Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue.
Devices revenue declined by 9 percent.
Xbox content and services revenue saw a remarkable 61 percent increase, with a substantial impact from the Activision acquisition.
Search and news advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, rose by 8 percent.
Microsoft anticipates operating expenses of $15.8 billion to $15.9 billion in the current quarter, compared to $15.4 billion in the previous one. The company expects a substantial increase in capital expenditures on a sequential basis.
In collaboration with OpenAI, Microsoft has integrated chatbots into core products like Office software and Bing search engine, contributing to a 57 percent rise in the company’s shares in 2023. The growth in AI, particularly Azure, continues to be a focal point for investors, with 6 percentage points of Azure’s growth rate in the second quarter attributed to AI, double the figure from the first quarter.
Furthermore, there are now 53,000 Azure AI customers, with a third of them being new to the service in the past 12 months, underscoring the increasing adoption of AI solutions.
