Microsoft stock gains slightly as cloud fuels earnings beat

Microsoft Corp. shares ticked higher following an initial after-hours slip Thursday, after the tech giant’s quarterly results topped Wall Street estimates thanks to better-than-expected revenue in cloud computing.

Microsoft MSFT, -0.68%  shares were last up 0.7% after hours, following a 0.7% decline to close the regular session Thursday at $104.40.

The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $8.87 billion, or $1.14 a share, compared with $8.07 billion, or $1.03 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were $1.13 a share. On average, analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted earnings of $1.08 a share. Revenue rose to $30.09 billion from $25.61 billion in the year-ago period, compared with FactSet-polled analysts expecting an average $29.21 billion.

Microsoft said that Office commercial products and cloud services revenue gained 8%, while Office 365 revenue jumped 35%. Revenue at Microsoft’s public cloud service Azure soared 85% from the year-ago quarter. Gaming revenue grew 38%, while Xbox services and software revenue gained 35%.

In Microsoft’s segments, “Productivity and Business Processes” revenue rose to $9.67 billion, from $8.55 billion a year ago, while analysts expected $9.68 billion. “Intelligent Cloud” revenue rose to $9.61 billion, from $7.82 billion a year ago, while analysts forecast $9.09 billion. “More Personal Computing” revenue rose to $10.81 billion, from $9.24 billion a year ago, while analysts had estimated $10.41 billion.

At the close Thursday, shares of Microsoft were up 22% for the year, compared with a more than 13% gain in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.37% a 4.9% gain in the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.40%  and a 1.4% advance in the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.53% The company recently topped an $800 billion market capitalization for the first time. 

Of the 34 analysts that cover Microsoft, 29 rate the stock a buy or overweight, four have hold ratings, and one has a sell rating, with an average target price of $113.55 a share.