Microsoft beat Wall Street's estimates for third-quarter revenue on Tuesday , driven by growth in its cloud computing and Office productivity software businesses.
Revenue rose 7 per cent to $52.9 billion in the quarter ended March, inching past the average analyst estimate of US$51.02 billion, according to Refinitiv. The bulk of Microsoft sales still come from selling software and cloud computing services to customers, even though the company has grabbed headlines this year with its partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI and sprucing up the Bing search engine with artificial intelligence technology.
Analysts had expected a gloomy economic outlook to hit Microsoft's Windows business, which depends heavily on PC sales that have sagged in recent quarters. The sales drop in the segment was less severe than analyst expected, with Microsoft reporting revenue of US$13.3 billion versus analyst estimates of US$12.19 billion, according to Refinitiv data.