Markets MSFT -0.71% JUL 29, 2026

Microsoft tops $90B quarter, Azure prints 43% growth — MSFT +3% after hours

Fiscal Q4 revenue of $90.0B beat the $87.62B consensus; Azure accelerated past guided 39–40% range, and full-year cloud revenue crossed $100B for the first time.

BY HENLEY MARRAST · MARKETS DESK

Microsoft reported fiscal Q4 revenue of $90.01 billion, up 18% year over year, against an LSEG consensus of $87.62 billion. Shares climbed roughly 3% after hours, a notable reversal for a stock that came into the print down 19% year to date while the S&P 500 was up about 7%.

The line every analyst was watching: Azure and other cloud services grew 43%, blowing past management’s own guided range of 39–40% and the roughly 40% constant-currency figure the Street had penciled in. Bloomberg flagged it as the fastest quarterly pace since early 2022. Full-year Azure revenue crossed $100 billion for the first time, up 41%, putting Microsoft’s cloud business at a scale trailed only by AWS.

Segment results reinforced the story. Intelligent Cloud landed at $39.31 billion, up 31.6%, ahead of the $38.16 billion StreetAccount consensus. Productivity and Business Processes came in at $37.85 billion, up 14.3%, with Microsoft 365 Copilot now sitting at over 30 million paid seats. Adjusted EPS was $4.74 against $4.24 expected; GAAP net income of $35.77 billion ($4.81 diluted) compared with $27.23 billion ($3.65) a year earlier.

The forward book is where the skeptics lose their footing. Commercial remaining performance obligations reached $678 billion, up 84% year over year and 8% sequentially, with CNBC noting the growth came from customers other than AI model developers. That’s the answer to the circular-spend critique that has dogged hyperscaler earnings for a year.

Satya Nadella framed the print as “reflecting the confidence customers are placing in us to power their AI transformation.”

Capex tells the other half of the story. Q4 capital expenditures including finance leases hit $41 billion, up 69%, though Yahoo Finance noted this came in below the $42 billion-plus threshold the Street had feared. Full-year capex reached $115.95 billion, up nearly 80% from fiscal 2025. Free cash flow fell 23% to $19.64 billion. Results also included a $3.2 billion gain on Microsoft’s Anthropic investment, lower-than-expected costs from the first voluntary retirement program, and an Xbox impairment charge.

An AI cycle is legible in the numbers now, not just the vibes. The $678 billion book is what a bet made in 2023 looks like when it clears.

Sources

About the author

Henley Marrast

MARKETS DESK

Henley Marrast covers AI-equity flow, accelerator demand, and earnings prints for AI Sheet Report. She leads coverage of the public AI complex from the New York markets desk, with a focus on the daily tape and quarterly results. She has been writing about technology markets for several years.