{"id":97519,"date":"2025-05-01T14:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T10:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/?p=97519"},"modified":"2025-05-01T15:37:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T11:37:16","slug":"microsoft-azure-growth-hits-33-tops-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/microsoft-azure-growth-hits-33-tops-estimates\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Azure Growth Hits 33%, Tops Estimates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Microsoft Azure<\/a> posted strong growth in the third quarter ending March 31, 2025. Revenue from the cloud platform rose 33%, exceeding analyst estimates of 29.7%, according to Visible Alpha. Microsoft shares jumped 7% in after-hours trading, reflecting renewed investor confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by Reuters.com, overall revenue reached $70.1 billion, up 13% from the same quarter last year. Profit stood at $3.46 per share, beating expectations of $3.22. The Intelligent Cloud division, which includes Azure, contributed $26.8 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI played a major role. It added 16 percentage points to Azure\u2019s growth\u2014up from 13 points in the previous quarter. Commercial bookings increased 18%, driven in part by a new Azure deal with OpenAI. Microsoft<\/a> declined to comment on the contract size but confirmed it supported momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CEO Satya Nadella addressed recent scrutiny of Microsoft\u2019s data center strategy. On a conference call, he said the company has always adapted its infrastructure plans based on demand. He noted that close attention to such adjustments by analysts is relatively new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a long history of adjusting our data center plans,\u201d Nadella said. \u201cOnly recently have those shifts been under a microscope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company forecasted Q4 cloud revenue growth of 34% to 35% in constant currency, or between $28.75 billion and $29.05 billion\u2014above consensus estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CFO Amy Hood explained that most of the outperformance came from non-AI services. While AI demand was strong, the real upside was Microsoft’s ability to deliver infrastructure to customers earlier than planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capital expenditures increased 53% to $21.4 billion. Yet, investment in longer-lived assets fell to about half. Microsoft is focusing more on short-term assets like GPUs and CPUs, which allow faster deployment and revenue recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Neilson, Vice President of Investor Relations, said this shift reflects Microsoft\u2019s priority on flexibility and speed. He noted that once chips are installed, the company can begin recognizing revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fiscal 2026, which begins in July, Microsoft expects continued infrastructure investment\u2014though at a slower pace and with more focus on short-term assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft Azure continues to play a central role in the company\u2019s cloud and AI growth strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft Azure posted strong growth in the third quarter ending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":97521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9617],"tags":[756],"contributor":[9732],"class_list":["post-97519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-microsoft","contributor-news-desk"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Microsoft-Azure-01-1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"M","author_link":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/author\/muhsin_tech\/"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97519"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=97519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}