Microsoft Rides AI Wave To New Era Of Computing, Nadella Says

Microsoft released earnings Tuesday -- reporting $52.9 billion in revenue for the first three months of 2023.

Analysts polled by FactSet forecast Microsoft to report revenue of $51.02 billion for the quarter.

In the quarter, Microsoft pushed into artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalized on its investments in startup OpenAI with the February release of a new AI chatbot feature on its search engine Bing.

“The world's most advanced AI models are coming together with the world's most universal user interface -- natural language -- to create a new era of computing,” stated Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Across the Microsoft Cloud, we are the platform of choice to help customers get the most value out of their digital spend and innovate for this next generation of AI.”

Revenue from the More Personal Computing division came in at $13.3 billion -- down about 9% compared with the year-ago quarter. Part of this sector includes revenue from search and news advertising, which contributed $3 billion for the quarter -- up from $ 2.9 billion the year prior.

Excluding traffic acquisition costs, the sector rose 10%.

Other products in More Personal Computing include Windows OEM, which fell 28%; Devices revenue, which fell 30%; and Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue, which increased 14%. Xbox content and services revenue increased 3%.

LinkedIn revenue increased 8%, and server products and cloud services contributed a bit more than $ 20 billion.

Microsoft Cloud -- which includes Azure and other cloud services, Office 365 Commercial, the commercial portion of LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, and other commercial cloud properties -- came in at $28.5 billion for the three and ending March 31, 2023, compared with $23.4 billion for the three months ending March 31, 2022.

Azure, the company’s cloud unit, grew revenue 31% on a currency adjusted basis.

Microsoft’s cloud-computing business came in as the best-performing, generating $22.1 billion in revenue.

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