{"id":40555,"date":"2023-07-26T03:17:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/news\/microsoft-q4-earnings-ais-role-in-cementing-its-dominance-nasdaqmsft\/"},"modified":"2023-07-26T03:17:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:17:17","slug":"microsoft-q4-earnings-ais-role-in-cementing-its-dominance-nasdaqmsft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=40555","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Q4 Earnings: AI&#8217;s Role In Cementing Its Dominance (NASDAQ:MSFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-test-id=\"content-container\">\n<p><figure class=\"getty-figure\" data-type=\"getty-image\"><picture>  <\/picture><figcaption> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Investment Thesis<\/h2>\n<p>Microsoft&#8217;s (<span class=\"ticker-hover-wrapper\">NASDAQ:MSFT<\/span>) share price is down slightly premarket. However, I don&#8217;t believe its share price will remain down for long.<\/p>\n<p>After all, throughout the call, we heard that demand for generative AI solutions remains strong, and the company is<span class=\"paywall-full-content invisible\"> focused on executing against this demand to drive revenue growth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible\">What happened after the earnings print is that investors were not amazed with new information. And indeed this reaction makes sense. After all, Microsoft had already been on a tear headed into this earnings result, so a lot of the news was already priced in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible\">In sum, this continues to be a rewarding long-term investment.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall-full-content invisible\">Microsoft&#8217;s Near-Term Prospects<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible\">Earlier in June the world discovered just how big Azure is relative to AWS (AMZN). Half the size. With the proverbial pandora box now open, Microsoft had little choice<span class=\"paywall-full-content no-summary-bullets invisible\"> but to open up its earnings call with this factoid once again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Azure generated about $55 billion of annualized revenues in fiscal Q4 2023. But while Microsoft spent a lot of time on its earnings call discussing its AI prospects, Microsoft didn&#8217;t wish to over-stress the AI side of its operations to the detriment of everything else the IT conglomerate offers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">That being said, as you can imagine, the analysts&#8217; Q&amp;A section of the call was dominated by questions seeking to figure out how much capex AI will require to figure out how to best model Microsoft&#8217;s next couple of quarters&#8217; outlook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">One interesting insight that percolated from the call included this,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">\n<p>We continue to build momentum in Microsoft Teams across collaboration, chat, meetings and calling.<\/p>\n[&#8230;] <em>Teams Phone is the market leader in cloud calling<\/em> with more than 17 million PSTN users, up 45% year-over-year. Teams Room is used by more than 70% of the Fortune 500, including L&#8217;Oreal, United Airlines and U.S. Bank, and revenue more than doubled year-over-year this quarter. (emphasis added)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">This shows that we are way past the pandemic and still the use of Teams Phone is still clearly rising. This is quite astounding. Particularly when we compare that insight with Zoom&#8217;s (ZM) recent prospect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Reiterating that Microsoft is still the preferred platform for IT infrastructure. Particularly at the current moment, when firms are aggressively moving towards platform consolidation and reducing unnecessary IT expenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Let&#8217;s move press ahead and discuss Microsoft&#8217;s outlook.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Revenue Growth Rates At Double Digits<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">\n<figure class=\"regular-img-figure a-c paywall-full-content invisible\" contenteditable=\"false\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/17546952-16903464605411243.png\" alt=\"MSFT revenue growth rates\" contenteditable=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/span><figcaption>\n<p class=\"item-caption\"><span>MSFT revenue growth rates<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Microsoft&#8217;s fiscal Q1 2024 guidance points towards about 10% topline growth. Needless to say that Intelligent Cloud segment remains the crown jewel at present, and is expected to increase by approximately 15% y\/y. While More Personal Computing could end up being down 1% y\/y.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Meanwhile, Productivity and Business Processes are expected to deliver about 11% y\/y revenue growth rates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">And even though Microsoft&#8217;s revenue growth rates find themselves in a digestion period, I suspect in the coming few days we&#8217;ll be seeing analysts busily upwards revising their outlook as they gush over CFO Amy Wood&#8217;s comments below,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">\n<p>And we do expect, as you asked and Satya talked about, the pace of this [AI] adoption curve, we do expect to be faster [than the cloud&#8217;s]. So you&#8217;re seeing the CapEx spend accelerate in Q4 and then again in Q1 [&#8230;]\n<p>So I think the real focus here is being able to be aggressive in meeting the demand curve and focusing on the transition and growth in gross margins and delivering the operating leverage.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">MSFT Stock Valuation &#8212; Not Cheap<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Microsoft is priced at approximately 28x forward EPS. For a business that is growing its EPS line at about 12% to 14% CAGR, this is not a cheap valuation, as you know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">That being said, the bull case for MSFT has never been about its valuation, but rather a place where capital can hide out while knowing that no negative surprises are likely to emerge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">It&#8217;s a bit like an &#8221;insurance trade&#8221;, knowing that Microsoft is a toll bridge on the IT world.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">The Bottom Line<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">In my opinion, Microsoft&#8217;s share price may have dipped slightly premarket, but I believe it won&#8217;t remain down for long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">The demand for generative AI solutions is strong, and the company is focused on capitalizing on this demand to drive revenue growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">While investors may not have been overly amazed by new information during the earnings call, it&#8217;s important to consider that Microsoft was already performing well before the results were released, so much of the news was already priced in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">Looking ahead, Microsoft&#8217;s outlook remains promising, with revenue growth rates expected to be at double digits, particularly driven by its Intelligent Cloud segment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall-full-content invisible no-summary-bullets\">While the stock may not be cheaply valued, it has been considered a safe haven for capital, as Microsoft is a leading player in the IT world. Overall, I see Microsoft as a rewarding long-term investment with bright prospects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/article\/4619811-microsoft-stock-q4-2023-earnings-ai-role-cementing-its-dominance-reiterate-buy?source=feed_all_articles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investment Thesis Microsoft&#8217;s (NASDAQ:MSFT) share price is down slightly premarket. However, I don&#8217;t believe its share price will remain down for long. After all, throughout the call, we heard that demand for generative AI solutions remains strong, and the company is focused on executing against this demand to drive revenue growth. What happened after the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-40555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft Q4 Earnings: AI&#039;s Role In Cementing Its Dominance (NASDAQ:MSFT) | iFintechWorld<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Investment Thesis Microsoft&#039;s (NASDAQ:MSFT) share price is down slightly premarket. 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