Microsoft is headed for a record high after cloud computing drives a strong earnings beat
- Microsoft rose 3.5% in early trading Friday after fiscal fourth-quarter earnings showed a beat on both revenue and profits.
- The computing giant is headed for a record open, strengthening its position as the world's most valuable company. It had a market cap of $1.05 trillion as of Thursday's close.
- Revenue growth in the company's office-productivity products and cloud-computing service Azure drove bottom-line gains.
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Microsoft rose 3.5% in early trading Friday after handily beating Wall Street estimates for fiscal fourth-quarter earnings.
The technology company announced earnings of $1.37 per share, beating estimates of $1.21. Revenue came in at $33.72 billion, topping the consensus expectation of $32.77.
The jump in share price further reinforced Microsoft as the world's most valuable company, with a market cap of $1.05 trillion as of Thursday's close.
One of the foremost highlights in the report was cloud revenue rising 19%, with Microsoft's Azure platform growing 64% from the same period in 2018. The company saw 14% growth in its productivity-and-business-processes segment, which includes Office 365, LinkedIn, and Dynamics.
One segment that didn't grow in the last quarter was Microsoft's gaming business, with revenue down 10% in the quarter. The company's Xbox line will see its next generation console, codenamed Project Scarlett, launch in holiday 2020.
Microsoft stock traded at $140.20 per share as of 8:53 a.m. ET Friday. The price represents a year-to-date gain of about 38%.
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