Gyanamndu:
Strong Earnings push Microsoft to this milestone as Microsoft has become the third US company to pass a market cap of $1 trillion. The software giant passed the milestone briefly yesterday after a jump in stock price yesterday following strong fiscal Q3 earnings. Microsoft joins Apple and Amazon in hitting the $1 trillion valuation ahead of rival Google. Apple and Amazon did so last year. Microsoft’s stock price opened at $130 per share on 25th April, up around four percent from the $125 closing price 24th April. The three tech giants have taken turns in recent months to rank as the world's most valuable US listed company.
The company has spent the past five years shifting from reliance on its once-dominant Windows operating system to selling cloud-based services. Its flagship cloud product Azure competes with market leader Amazon Web Services to provide a computing platform for businesses. Microsoft also operates the Outlook 365 email service. Investors were also cheered by predictions of further growth for the cloud computing business.
Microsoft’s latest earnings also revealed that the three main buckets the company splits its businesses up into are all doing well and roughly contributing the same amount of revenue this quarter (around 30 percent each). Latest results for the third quarter to the end of March showed revenues up 14% to $30.6bn (£24bn) and profit 19% higher at $8.8bn (£6.8bn).
- Office, LinkedIn, and Dynamics = $10.2 billion in revenue
- Azure cloud, server products, and enterprise services = $9.7 billion in revenue
- Windows, Xbox, and Surface = $10.7 billion in revenue
