Microsoft’s MSFT report and commentary are expected to focus on the tech giant’s ambitions for artificial intelligence and declining growth rates for cloud-computing. Investors will also want to watch for the severity of a decline in the personal-computer business, as well as any difficulty in closing enterprise-software deals.Microsoft’s MSFT report and commentary are expected to focus on the tech giant’s ambitions for artificial intelligence and declining growth rates for cloud-computing.
Forecast: Microsoft executives typically provide their forecast in a conference call after the results are released, and shares tend to move more based on that information than on the quarterly results. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood typically provides projected revenue ranges for all three segments individually at the end of her prepared statements. Currently, analysts are projecting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $54.71 billion on average, according to FactSet, with cloud sales of $23.
“3rd party data we track showed a continued high level of deceleration in commercial bookings growth for the Big 3 hyperscalers, w/ new ACV bookings declining in the low double digits in C1Q vs. +6% in C4Q and +20% in C3Q, suggesting the rate of decline is accelerating, particularly in the Americas,” TD Cowen analysts wrote in an April 18 note.
“We found that Microsoft is slowing in Azure in the current quarter, and as such we cut our prior 27% estimate to 25%, and therefore, along with weaker PCs, and anxiously waiting on a close to [the acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI ], we are expecting one of the company’s softer quarters,” they wrote.