Microsoft earnings show that investors only care about AI now

Microsoft shares were down more than 6% in after-hours trading Tuesday, despite quarterly earnings beating on the top and bottom lines. It was a lesson to tech companies that earnings mean less to investors today than the growth of artificial intelligence divisions.

The company reported earnings per share of $2.95 in its fourth fiscal quarter of 2024, compared to estimates of $2.93. Revenues were slightly higher than expected as well, hitting $64.7 billion versus estimates of $64.39 billion.

Growth in the Azure cloud division, a service corporate customers use for their AI initiatives, came in short, though. Wall Street was looking for year-over-year growth of 30.2%. Microsoft says the actual figure came in at 29%. And Azure is, at the moment, just about everything the company’s investors are paying attention to.

Azure’s growth was lower than in the past two quarters. In the third quarter, Azure saw growth of 31% and the second quarter saw 30% growth in the division.

Is a 29% increase a big drop? Obviously, no. But given the overwhelming hype that still accompanies all things AI, any slowdown is likely to spook investors. While the stock did recover a bit as the market digested the numbers, initially Microsoft shares fell 7% before recovering slightly.

While the decline in growth could be interpreted as a slowdown, however slight, in corporate interest in AI, the numbers don’t support that. Of the 29% growth figure, 8 of those percentage points came from AI services, which was higher than Q3’s 7 points and Q2’s 6 points. That indicates that more and more growth is coming from AI services, which should be a long-term positive for Microsoft.

Investors have become a bit spoiled in the past year, as tech companies, from Microsoft to Nvidia, have shattered analyst expectations, so as comparable year-over-year numbers begin to come down to earth, investors will have to adjust their whisper numbers and hopes. Tuesday’s drop in Microsoft stock shows they haven’t quite made that transition.

“Our strong performance this fiscal year speaks both to our innovation and to the trust customers continue to place in Microsoft,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft in a statement. “As a platform company, we are focused on meeting the mission-critical needs of our customers across our at-scale platforms today, while also ensuring we lead the AI era.”

While investors may not be as interested in other divisions of the company, there were some interesting figures. Microsoft says Xbox hardware sales were down 42% year-over-year, while revenue from content and services increased 61%, almost entirely on the strength of the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, as more games signed up for GamePass.

Windows OEM revenue, meanwhile, was up 4% as the PC market returns to prepandemic levels. 

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