MSFT
Azure is still doing the heavy lifting
Microsoft keeps finding new ways to make the AI boom look less like a buzzword and more like a money machine. The company’s latest quarter showed revenue up 18% to $90.01 billion and EPS of $4.74, marking a 14th straight double beat — basically the corporate version of never missing a free throw.
Cloud was the real engine under the hood. Overall cloud revenue climbed 27% to $59.3 billion, Intelligent Cloud jumped 32% to $39.3 billion, and Azure and other cloud services surged 43%. That’s the kind of growth that makes investors shrug off broader tech weakness and keep paying up for the stock.
BNP says the AI payoff is getting real
BNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski said Microsoft came through on almost every big investor worry heading into the print. In his view, Azure is still outpacing expectations, while Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and AI infrastructure are starting to show more tangible monetization across the software stack.
He also pointed to a few upside levers that matter if you own the stock:
- more usage-based pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot
- more E7 attach opportunities
- higher GPU rental pricing
- stronger OpenAI momentum in July
That’s a fancy way of saying the AI story is no longer just about promises. It’s starting to look like a recurring revenue machine.
The Street still wants more cloud
Slowinski said Microsoft’s fiscal first-quarter 2027 Azure guidance of 45% suggests growth could keep accelerating, with the possibility of high-40% expansion by the second quarter of fiscal 2027 if AI capacity keeps coming online and demand stays hot.
He kept his $549 price target, which implies about 22% upside from the recent $451.10 level. So yes, Microsoft is already gigantic — but Wall Street is still basically saying, “Cool story, show me more.”
Big picture: Microsoft doesn’t need a perfect market to win. It just needs cloud demand, AI spending, and a steady stream of Copilot hype that actually turns into dollars.