Microsoft reports 10pc quarterly profit growth

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (AP): Microsoft said Wednesday that its profit for the October-December quarter grew 10 per cent as it works to capitalize on the huge amounts of money it has spent to advance its artificial intelligence technology.

But while its overall profits and revenue beat Wall Street expectations, it slightly missed projections for its closely-watched cloud computing business, a centrepiece of its AI efforts.

The company reported net income for the quarter of $24.1 billion, or $3.23 per share, beating Wall Street expectations of $3.11 per share. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $69.6 billion in the quarter, up 12 per cent from the previous year, also beating expectations.

Analysts polled by FactSet Research expected Microsoft to generate revenue of $68.87 billion in the last three months of the year.

Sales from Microsoft's cloud-focused business segment that includes its flagship Azure computing platform grew 19 per cent from the same time last year to $25.5 billion, which was less than the $25.83 billion forecast by FactSet analysts.

Microsoft's productivity business segment, which includes its Office suite of email and other workplace products, grew 14 per cent to $29.4 billion.

Its personal computing business, led by its Windows division, remained steady at $14.7 billion, with a drop in consumer device sales offset by growth in advertising revenue tied to the Bing search engine.

Microsoft shares dropped 5 per cent in after-hours trading Wednesday but were still higher than Monday, when the tech giant was hit by a broader tech stock sale caused by a frenzy over the new ChatGPT competitor developed by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek.