Microsoft has reported a net income of $22.03bn for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2024 (Q4 FY24), a year-on-year increase of 10%. Redmond’s total revenue for Q4 FY24, meanwhile, was $64.72bn, an increase of 15.2%. That included revenue of $36.8bn earned by Microsoft Cloud, up 21% year-over-year (YoY). Redmond’s productivity and business processes unit, meanwhile, saw an 11% increase in Q4 FY24 revenue to $20.3bn, compared to $18.3bn in Q4 FY23. LinkedIn, which is also part of this business unit, saw its revenue grow by 10%.
“Our strong performance this fiscal year speaks both to our innovation and to the trust customers continue to place in Microsoft,” said the firm’s chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella. “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.”
Microsoft cloud revenue up
The revenue of Office commercial products and cloud services in Q4 FY24 was up by 12% YoY. Redmond also claimed that Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers increased to 82.5 million during the reported quarter. Meanwhile, its intelligent cloud business earned revenue of $28.51bn in the reported quarter – an increase of 19% compared to $24bn in Q4 FY23.
During the earnings conference call, Nadella highlighted Azure’s AI-driven growth, noting expanded data centre operations across four continents and the introduction of new AI accelerators and Azure’s own first-party silicon, Azure Maia. Azure AI’s customer base has grown nearly 60% YoY, with Azure OpenAI Service expanding to include advanced models such as GPT-4o.
Hitherto unknown ‘capacity constraints’ on Azure’s growth, however, led investors to question the pace at which Microsoft was harnessing AI. Shortly after the results were announced, the firm’s shares fell by 8% in after-hours trading – an inevitable market correction, Interactive Brokers’ chief investment strategist Steve Sosnick told the FT.
“Expectations had gotten so high that it’s becoming impossible to beat them,” said Sosnick. “This is what happens when you become very dependent on large companies with a huge footprint – and a technology that is going to take time to translate to the bottom line.”
Data progress
On the data front, Redmond’s Intelligent Data Platform has integrated databases, analytics, and AI services, showing a near-50% increase in customer adoption YoY. GitHub Copilot has significantly contributed to GitHub’s annual revenue now reaching $2bn, said Nadella.
Furthermore, Nadella claimed that Microsoft 365 enhancements through Copilot are transforming workflows, with industry-specific solutions like DAX Copilot for healthcare highlighting Microsoft’s commitment to integrating AI across services to boost productivity and foster growth.
Recently, Microsoft experienced a widespread issue where millions of devices running Windows OS encountered the “blue screen of death” error. The global IT outage was triggered by a routine software update to the Falcon platform sensor, a key component of CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
Last week, CrowdStrike claimed to have restored 97% of Windows sensors. Prior to this, Microsoft released a recovery tool to address the issues caused by the CrowdStrike Falcon agent.
Read more: Microsoft abandons observer seat on OpenAI board
