Microsoft beats expectations, fuelled by Azure cloud business

Microsoft reported better-than-expected revenue and profit in its latest quarterly earnings, driven by the growth of its Azure cloud computing division. Shares of the technology giant surged more than 5% on Wednesday after the earnings release. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attributed the strong performance to the company's ability to deliver greater capability, choice, control, and cost efficiency for customers across its entire cloud stack.

The company reported total revenue of US$92.3 billion and profit of more than US$36.6 billion for the quarter, surpassing analysts' expectations of US$90.6 billion in revenue and US$35.1 billion in profit. Microsoft's voluntary buyout offer, which affected roughly a quarter of its workforce, came just days before the earnings report. The tech giant has spent heavily on artificial intelligence investments, and this is the second voluntary buyout offer it has provided to employees this year.

Microsoft had 223,000 employees globally at the end of June, a slight decrease from 228,000 at the end of 2025, according to regulatory filings. The company's cloud business is closely contested with Amazon Web Services and Google, with Microsoft holding the second position globally. However, Google's cloud division recently reported a doubling of revenue to US$30.7 billion, challenging Microsoft's Azure dominance. Microsoft's Azure revenue reached US$33.2 billion during the same period.

Meta, Facebook's parent company, announced on Monday that it would raise US$35 billion through a stock offering to fund its AI investments, adding to the growing spending on AI-related expenses by tech companies this year.