Microsoft Q3 Earnings Preview: All Eyes Are On AI-Driven Growth

Zinger Key Points
  • The second-largest U.S. corporation by market cap will report Tuesday after closing bells.
  • Investors anxiously await company's guidance on AI growth. 

Microsoft Corp. MSFT will announce fiscal year 2023 third-quarter financial results on Tuesday, April 25, after market close. Here are five things to know ahead of the report:

  • The company's earnings per share for the quarter are expected to be $2.24, with revenue of $51.11 billion, according to Wall Street analysts.
  • Earnings are expected to fall 3.5% in Q2 2023 and to remain basically steady from Q3 2022.
  • Estimated sales are down 3.2% from Q2 2023 and up 3.5% from Q3 2023.
    In the last four quarters, the firm has outperformed profit estimates three times and revenue predictions twice.
  • It will be Microsoft's first financial report after the company decided to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) startup powering ChatGPT, in January 2023.

Read Also: Microsoft Stock, Analyst Ratings, Price Targets, And Latest Predictions...

Analysts' Views on Microsoft's Earnings

Analysts at BofA expect Microsoft to announce some revenue shortfall compared to Street projections owing to decline in PC sales, although they see this as a transitory macro headwind. Overall, BofA sees Microsoft as one of the few companies possessing the three critical components necessary for AI success:

  1. computational scale (through Azure & Office 365)
  2. data scale (cloud infrastructure & desktop apps) and
  3. data management/engineering skills (SQL, Synapse, Sentinel, and so on).

This month, BofA raised its Microsoft's price objective from $300 to $320 on the back of emerging AI-driven growth.

Microsoft's Stock Performance And Valuations

  • Microsoft's stock price is trading at $285 per share, up 19% year to date as of this writing. 
  • Shares are nearly 18% lower than their all-time highs of $349 set in November 2021. 
  • Last quarter, the Redmond, Washington-based company gained 17.5% posting its second-best quarterly performance over the past five years.
  • The current Microsoft's stock price is 7% below the average price target from a pool of Wall Street analysts covering the company. 
  • Microsoft trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 28.9, according to Benzinga pro data

Next: If You Invested $1000 In Microsoft Stock When Bill Gates Explained The Internet To David Letterman, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

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Posted In: EarningsNewsPreviewsTop StoriesTechTrading Ideasartificial intelligenceChatGPTMicrosoftOpen AI
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