Microsoft beats expectations fueled by Azure cloud business

On October 28th, Microsoft's shares surged over 5% following the company's better-than-expected revenue and profit report for the September quarter. The growth was primarily driven by its Azure cloud computing division, which experienced a 48% increase in revenue. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated, "We are delivering greater capability, choice, control, and cost efficiency for customers across our entire stack."

In their latest securities filing, Microsoft disclosed total revenue of US$92.3 billion and profit of more than US$36.6 billion. Analysts had anticipated revenue of around US$90.6 billion and profit of US$35.1 billion. This earnings report comes only days after Microsoft announced voluntary buyouts for approximately 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, as the company invests heavily in AI.

This is the second voluntary buyout offer from Microsoft in 2026, following an earlier one in April where 7% of its US workforce was given the option to retire early. As of June, Microsoft had 223,000 employees globally, a decrease from 228,000 at the end of 2025. In October, Microsoft also unveiled a new Surface Ultra laptop powered by Nvidia’s AI chips, priced above US$2,500.

This launch is part of a broader strategy by tech companies to develop hardware capable of handling AI computing on-device and offline, reducing reliance on remote cloud data centers. One of the key questions in tech earnings is whether the industry's significant AI spending is yielding positive results. Analysts predict Microsoft will spend $51 billion overall from July to September, according to FactSet.

Microsoft increased its spending on "property and equipment" by nearly double to US$39 billion compared to the same period last year. The company added 24 new data centers worldwide in the most recent quarter, with CEO Nadella informing analysts on a call that overall capital expenditures reached US$45.2 billion, with around three-quarters of the spending allocated to short-lived assets like memory chips and storage, as stated by CFO Amy Hood.

For the final quarter of 2026, Microsoft anticipates capital expenditures to reach over $50 billion, bringing its total spending for the year to US$170 billion. Although Microsoft competes with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Alphabet's Google for cloud computing services customers, AWS currently leads the sector with the highest revenue globally.

Microsoft ranks second, followed by Google. However, Google announced on Wednesday that its cloud division's revenue doubled to $30.7 billion during the quarter, narrowing the gap with Microsoft's Azure, which reached US$33.2 billion in the same period.