Microsoft Corporation · MSFT · FY2026 Q4 · Calendar Q3 2026

Microsoft pairs strong Azure growth with another major AI investment cycle

Microsoft's latest results support the view that resilient cloud and AI demand can sustain growth, but the thesis depends on converting infrastructure investment into durable enterprise usage while managing margin and capacity risks.

Reported After market closeNASDAQTechnology $3697.92B market cap
100quality score

Earnings scorecard

Reported versus consensus
Reported EPS $4.74 Consensus $4.24
EPS surprise +11.8% Reported versus consensus
Reported revenue $90.01B Consensus $87.62B
Revenue surprise +2.7% Reported versus consensus

Market reaction

event-close to next-session close
Stock move +15.5% Event window
SPY move +1.7% Same window
Abnormal move +13.8% Stock minus SPY
Volume 3.4× Versus trailing sessions
Subsequent drift +12.0% Up to 20 sessions
MSFTSPY benchmark

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Transcript intelligence

What changed

The current analysis shows Azure at $100 billion of revenue, up 41%, Copilot above 30 million paid seats, 31 additional data centers, and a plan to double data-center capacity within two years. Compared with the prior analysis, the investment cycle and enterprise AI platform have expanded, while capacity, cost, and oversupply concerns remain.

Guidance delta

Management maintained a confident outlook, with FY27 revenue growth guidance of 16–17%, operating margins roughly flat year over year, and capex expected to exceed $50 billion.

Key takeaways

  • Azure revenue reached $100 billion, up 41%, while Microsoft 365 Copilot exceeded 30 million paid seats.
  • Microsoft added 31 data centers this quarter and plans to double overall data-center capacity within two years.
  • The growth plan is increasingly tied to usage-based billing, AI infrastructure efficiency, and enterprise adoption.

Management priorities

  • Expand data-center and AI compute capacity, including rack-scale hardware and additional MAI models.
  • Broaden Microsoft 365 Copilot, Foundry, agent, and security offerings with usage-based billing.
  • Use AI infrastructure efficiency and model flexibility to support margin expansion while scaling enterprise adoption.

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Earnings History

Estimate Beat Miss Match
MSFT EPS earnings history estimate and actual scatter chart 9 reported fiscal quarters and 3 future estimate-only quarters. Q2 '24 estimate $2.78 Q2 '24 actual $2.93, beat Q3 '24 estimate $2.82 Q3 '24 actual $2.94, beat Q4 '24 estimate $2.93 Q4 '24 actual $2.95, beat Q1 '25 estimate $3.10 Q1 '25 actual $3.30, beat Q4 '25 estimate $3.37 Q4 '25 actual $3.65, beat Q1 '26 estimate $3.67 Q1 '26 actual $4.13, beat Q2 '26 estimate $3.90 Q2 '26 actual $4.14, beat Q3 '26 estimate $4.06 Q3 '26 actual $4.27, beat Q4 '26 estimate $4.24 Q4 '26 actual $4.74, beat Q1 '27 estimate $4.71 Q2 '27 estimate $4.78 Q3 '27 estimate $4.89
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Analyst Consensus ?

ConsensusBuy80 ratings
Bullish6581.3%
Neutral1518.7%
Bearish00.0%

Analyst 52W Price Targets

$498Previous close
$234Low
$503.52Average
$700High

Latest persisted target per named analyst; persisted previous close from FN2's market snapshot as of Sep 23, 2026. Not an FN2 forecast.

Firm-level rating actions

FMP grade actions identify the grading firm, not a named analyst.

FirmRatingPrior ratingActionDate
Cantor Fitzgerald Overweight OverweightMaintainSep 21, 2026
Citizens Market Outperform Market OutperformMaintainSep 15, 2026
Stifel Hold HoldMaintainSep 4, 2026
B of A Securities Buy BuyMaintainSep 1, 2026
Wells Fargo Overweight OverweightMaintainAug 12, 2026
Show 75 more rating actions

Named analyst price targets

Upside is calculated against the persisted previous close $498. FMP does not supply a rating on these named-analyst rows.

FirmAnalyst52W targetPrice when postedUpsideDate
Stifel NicolausBrad Reback$575$498 +15.5%Sep 22, 2026
OppenheimerBrian Schwartz$570$501.61 +14.5%Sep 22, 2026
Cantor FitzgeraldAnalyst unavailable$608$493.78 +22.1%Sep 21, 2026
Redburn PartnersAnalyst unavailable$440$493.78 -11.6%Sep 21, 2026
Stifel NicolausAnalyst unavailable$530$510.12 +6.4%Sep 4, 2026
See 260 more

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Company context

Snapshot as of publication

Microsoft Corporation is a prominent global technology firm that invents, markets, and provides ongoing assistance for a diverse range of software, digital services, computing devices, and comprehensive solutions. Its operations are organized into three primary divisions: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment delivers crucial tools for both enterprises and individual users. This includes the extensive Office suite (comprising Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft Viva, and Skype for Business), along with popular consumer offerings like Skype, Outlook.com, OneDrive, and LinkedIn. It also features Dynamics 365, a suite of integrated cloud and on-premises business applications tailored for organizations. The Intelligent Cloud division focuses on sophisticated infrastructure and platform services.…

Historical context

All MSFT earnings

Technology peers this season

Latest reports in the same sector
CompanyQuarterEPS surpriseMarket moveHeadline
ADBE Adobe Inc. FY2026 Q3 · Calendar Q3 2026 +0.8% +1.4% Adobe raises FY26 outlook as AI strategy broadens
ORCL Oracle Corporation FY2027 Q1 · Calendar Q3 2026 +10.3% -1.7% Oracle raises FY27 outlook as AI demand accelerates cloud growth
SAIL SailPoint, Inc. FY2027 Q2 · Calendar Q3 2026 +13.8% -1.2% SailPoint pairs 25% ARR growth with accelerating AI-driven adoption
CIEN Ciena Corporation FY2026 Q3 · Calendar Q3 2026 +22.0% -10.4% Ciena raises outlook as AI networking demand lifts backlog
DOCU DocuSign, Inc. FY2027 Q2 · Calendar Q3 2026 +6.4% +3.7% DocuSign Q2 FY27: IAM momentum supports a raised outlook
IOT Samsara Inc. FY2027 Q2 · Calendar Q3 2026 +25.0% +3.7% Samsara: AI adoption expands as FY27 guidance holds

Latest beats and misses

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Sources

  1. Earnings call transcript and parsed analysis · 2026-07-31T14:08:02.136100+00:00
  2. FN2 earnings calendar · 2026-09-03T01:23:14.877038+00:00
  3. Polygon adjusted daily market bars · 2026-09-23T08:20:52.985514+00:00
  4. Financial Modeling Prep analyst price-target consensus and quote snapshot · 2026-09-23T08:20:52.982755+00:00

Methodology

Reported and consensus figures come from FN2's earnings event records. Market reaction and volume are calculated from daily adjusted bars around the event; abnormal move subtracts the SPY move over the same window.

Analyst target low, average, and high values are derived at request time from each named analyst's latest persisted FMP target. The current-price marker comes from FN2's persisted market snapshot. They are sell-side estimates, not an FN2 valuation or recommendation.

Transcript intelligence is a structured synthesis of the current and prior earnings-call analyses. Missing values stay missing and are never estimated.

By FN2 Research · Updated · As of 2026-09-23. For educational purposes only; not investment advice.