Microsoft said it is expected that its business will continue to generate cash flow in the 2027 fiscal year, which has just begun; furthermore, after adjusting the accounting treatment of data center leases, the company's capital expenditure forecast is lower than Wall Street expectations. Previously, in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026 ending June 30, the company's cloud business quarterly revenue growth had exceeded Wall Street expectations; this time, its sales and cloud business growth forecasts for the first quarter of the current fiscal year also exceeded market expectations. Overall, these metrics show that Microsoft's huge investment in artificial intelligence is paying off, easing investors' concerns — previously the market feared one of the tech industry's biggest sources of cash flow and was making large-scale spending in pursuit of unrealized profits. This data also seems to convince investors that even though Microsoft faces strong challenges from its long-term competitor Google in the cloud business, it can still maintain its second position after Amazon, the leader in the cloud industry. After Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, released its earnings outlook, its stock price rose more than 8% in after-hours trading. According to Visible Alpha data, the company's Azure cloud computing business saw a 43% year-on-year increase in revenue in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, while analysts' previous consensus forecast was 39.98%.

Microsoft said it is expected that its business will continue to generate cash flow in the 2027 fiscal year, which has just begun; furthermore, after adjusting the accounting treatment of data center leases, the company's capital expenditure forecast is lower than Wall Street expectations. Previously, in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026 ending June 30, the company's cloud business quarterly revenue growth had exceeded Wall Street expectations; this time, its sales and cloud business growth forecasts for the first quarter of the current fiscal year also exceeded market expectations. Overall, these metrics show that Microsoft's huge investment in artificial intelligence is paying off, easing investors' concerns — previously the market feared one of the tech industry's biggest sources of cash flow and was making large-scale spending in pursuit of unrealized profits. This data also seems to convince investors that even though Microsoft faces strong challenges from its long-term competitor Google in the cloud business, it can still maintain its second position after Amazon, the leader in the cloud industry. After Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, released its earnings outlook, its stock price rose more than 8% in after-hours trading. According to Visible Alpha data, the company's Azure cloud computing business saw a 43% year-on-year increase in revenue in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, while analysts' previous consensus forecast was 39.98%.