Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the company at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on April 4, 2025.
Microsoft shares jumped 9% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter.
Here's how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $3.65 vs. $3.37 expected
$3.65 vs. $3.37 expected Revenue: $76.44 billion vs. $73.81 billion expected
Microsoft's finance chief, Amy Hood, called for $74.7 billion to $75.8 billion in fiscal first-quarter revenue. The middle of the range, at $75.25 billion, surpassed LSEG's $74.09 billion consensus. The company sees 37% Azure growth at constant currency. StreetAccount's consensus was 33.7%.
The company's fiscal first-quarter implied operating margin of 46.6% is wider than the 45.7% consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. Hood's forecast included over $30 billion in capital expenditures.
Hood said Microsoft sees over $30 billion in fiscal first quarter capital expenditures and assets acquired through finance leases, which would work out to annual growth above 50%. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $24.23 billion.
Capital expenditures will grow in the new fiscal year, but more slowly than in the 2025 fiscal year that ended in June, Hood said.
The company continues to face data center infrastructure shortages as it ramps up capacity for running artificial intelligence models.
"I talked about it, my gosh, in January, and said I thought we'd be in better supply-demand shape by June," Hood said. "And now I'm saying I hope I'm in better shape by December."
If the spending were to be the same for each quarter of the new 2026 fiscal year, the total would be over $120 billion, indicating 36% growth, compared with Visible Alpha's $100.50 billion consensus.
For the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on June 30, revenue increased 18% in the fiscal fourth quarter ending June 30, up from $64.7 billion a year earlier, according to a statement. That's the fastest growth in more than three years. Net income increased to $27.23 billion from $22.04 billion a year ago.
The company's Intelligent Cloud unit, which includes the Azure cloud, produced $29.88 billion in revenue, up about 26% and beating the StreetAccount consensus of $28.92 billion.
For the first time, Microsoft disclosed the scale of its Azure business in dollars. In fiscal 2025, revenue from Azure and other cloud services exceeded $75 billion, up 34% from the prior year.
During the fiscal fourth quarter, revenue from Azure grew 39%. Analysts polled by StreetAccount and CNBC had anticipated Azure growth of 34.4% and 35.3%, respectively.