{"id":123974,"date":"2026-07-30T08:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/123974\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:21:13","slug":"azure-cracks-100bn-as-ai-boosts-microsoft-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/123974\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure cracks $100bn as AI boosts Microsoft cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"For<\/p>\n

For the full 2026 financial year, Microsoft generated revenue of $331.8 billion. (Image source: iStock) <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s cloud business powered another quarter of double-digit growth, with Azure surpassing a revenue milestone as the software giant reported stronger-than-expected financial results.<\/p>\n

This was driven by sustained demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and cloud services.<\/p>\n

For the fourth quarter ended 30 June, Microsoft posted revenue of $90 billion, up 18% year-on-year, while operating income rose 18% to $40.6 billion. Net income increased 31% to $35.8 billion on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis.<\/p>\n

See also <\/p>\n

\"Microsoft\"Microsoft<\/p>\n

The company says Microsoft Cloud generated $59.3 billion in quarterly revenue, an increase of 27% from the same period last year, underscoring the growing importance of its cloud platform as enterprises continue investing in AI workloads.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, rival Alphabet also delivered<\/a> a standout second quarter for 2026, with its cloud business emerging as the company\u2019s fastest-growing segment.<\/p>\n

The Google parent company reported Google Cloud revenue of $24.8 billion for the quarter ended 30 June, an 82% year-on-year increase from $13.6 billion a year earlier.<\/p>\n

For Microsoft, Azure remained the standout performer, with revenue from Azure and other cloud services climbing 43% year-on-year.<\/p>\n

The result helped push annual Azure revenue beyond the $100 billion mark for the first time, highlighting the platform\u2019s rapid expansion as organisations migrate workloads to the cloud and deploy generative AI applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are advancing the frontier on the cost-to-outcome curve, ensuring every customer can turn tokens into business results,\u201d says Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, Azure revenue surpassed $100 billion for the first time, and Microsoft 365 Copilot reached over 30 million paid seats, reflecting the confidence customers are placing in us to power their AI transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Satya<\/p>\n

Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. <\/p>\n

The results reinforce Microsoft\u2019s position as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, with Azure continuing to attract customers seeking cloud infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly compute-intensive AI models and applications.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s Intelligent Cloud division, home to Azure, generated $39.3 billion in revenue during the quarter, representing 32% year-on-year growth, significantly outpacing Microsoft\u2019s other business segments.<\/p>\n

Commercial demand also remained robust, with Microsoft\u2019s commercial remaining performance obligation \u2013 a measure of future contracted revenue \u2013 increasing 84% to $678 billion, providing strong visibility into future cloud revenue.<\/p>\n

Chief financial officer Amy Hood notes that cloud continued to underpin Microsoft\u2019s financial performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe delivered a strong quarter to close out the fiscal year, highlighted by Microsoft Cloud revenue of $59.3 billion, up 27% year-over-year,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

While cloud and AI drove growth, Microsoft\u2019s productivity software business also delivered solid gains. Revenue in the productivity and business processes segment increased 14% to $37.8 billion, supported by continued adoption of Microsoft 365 Commercial, Microsoft 365 Consumer, LinkedIn and Dynamics 365.<\/p>\n

Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud revenue increased 14% on a reported basis, while Microsoft 365 Consumer cloud revenue rose 24%. LinkedIn revenue grew 12% and Dynamics 365 revenue increased 13%.<\/p>\n

Xbox, OpenAI considerations<\/p>\n

By contrast, the \u2018More Personal Computing\u2019 division declined 4% to $12.9 billion. Windows OEM and devices revenue fell 7%, while Xbox content and services revenue declined 10%. Search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, increased 10%.<\/p>\n

Microsoft points out that several discrete items influenced its quarterly earnings. These included a $3.2 billion gain from its investment in Anthropic and lower-than-expected costs associated with its voluntary retirement programme.<\/p>\n

According to the company, these gains were partly offset by severance expenses and impairment charges within the Xbox business.<\/p>\n

Excluding the impact of its investments in OpenAI, Microsoft reported non-GAAP net income of $35.3 billion, up 22%, with diluted earnings per share of $4.74, also up 23%.<\/p>\n

For the full 2026 financial year, Microsoft generated revenue of $331.8 billion, an increase of 18%, while operating income climbed 21% to $155.2 billion.<\/p>\n

Annual net income reached $133.7 billion, up 31% on a GAAP basis. Excluding the impact of OpenAI-related investments, non-GAAP net income increased 22%.<\/p>\n

The company also returned $10.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the full 2026 financial year, Microsoft generated revenue of $331.8 billion. (Image source: iStock) Microsoft\u2019s cloud business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[15552,420,7829,425,320,8172,7828,157,2806,11721],"class_list":["post-123974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-microsoft","tag-amy-hood","tag-azure","tag-azure-ai","tag-cloud-computing","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-365-copilot","tag-microsoft-ai","tag-openai","tag-satya-nadella","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}