The IT giant Microsoft opens the accounting books for the third quarter after closing time on Wall Street on Thursday evening.
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In advance, it was expected that the company would have a turnover of 60.86 billion dollars in the quarter, according to estimates from Bloomberg.
Adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.94. In advance, it was expected to land at 2.83 dollars.
The Microsoft share jumped 5.5 percent in after-hours trading on Wall Street.
Microsoft operates with so-called deviating financial years. This means that the company started the financial year 2024 in July last year, and ends it at the end of June this year.
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Winning stocks emerge
In advance, the most excitement has been linked to how the company’s development in artificial intelligence (AI) is going.
Microsoft has implemented chatbot and AI assistant Copilot in its products, including Office and GitHub.
Microsoft’s chatbot Copilot is integrated with Bing, the company’s search engine, and is supplemented with the same AI technology as ChatGPT from OpenAI.
During the last quarter, Microsoft launched Surface PCs with a separate button for quick access to the chatbot Copilot. The technology giant has also started selling access to Copilot for small businesses with a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft has also hired Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, a company that conducts AI research, to lead a new AI department in the company, writes CNBC.
Last quarter, the AI demand had an impact on the revenues from the company’s cloud sharing service Azure, which increased by 30 percent.
High expectations
At the same time as Microsoft, Google owner Alphabet also presents quarterly figures after closing time on Wall Street on Thursday evening.
High expectations are attached to the two technology giants, if they manage to justify the fierce optimism that has driven the rise in the share price. The companies make up a total of 9.4 percent of the S&P 500 index, according to Bloomberg.
The investors are waiting to get a deeper insight into how quickly consumers and companies are adopting AI services, and what growth will look like in the future for both companies.
Facebook owner Meta presented quarterly figures on Wednesday evening, and the stock has subsequently been sent down on Wall Street following weaker guidance. The company also announced that it will spend several billion more than expected on AI this year.
– This is the quarter where Microsoft and Alphabet, but also AI in general, must show themselves, says Michael Arone, chief investor at State Street Global Advisors, according to Bloomberg.
– Their prices reflect a perfect environment, and a modest surprise will not be enough this time. They must demonstrate the ability to exceed the highest expectations. It is crucial for the market to rebuild momentum, Arone continues.
Both the Microsoft share and the Alphabet share fell on Wall Street ahead of the quarterly figures.
Most valuable company
Microsoft reigns supreme over the world’s most valuable companies, with a market value of around 2.910 billion dollars. This corresponds to almost NOK 32,000 billion.
AI has been highlighted as an important reason why Microsoft overtook Apple in market value last winter. Apple has dominated since the early 2010s, fueled by the success of the iPhone, but now artificial intelligence is playing an important role in the tech giant’s market value.
Microsoft has invested heavily in OpenAI, the company behind the language model ChatGPT.
So far this year, Microsoft shares have risen x percent, while they are up x percent over the past year.
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