Microsoft benefits from strong demand for Azure and wins over investors. Zuckerberg’s group, meanwhile, reports lower-than-expected earnings per share and raises its investment guidance, lifting the lower end of the range from $125 billion to $130 billion: shares fell 5% in after-hours trading.

Microsoft closed the quarter well above analysts’ expectations, confirming that its bet on artificial intelligence is beginning to translate into tangible growth in revenue and profitability. The Redmond-based group ended the quarter with revenue of $90 billion, exceeding the Wall Street consensus of approximately $87.6-$87.7 billion, while earnings per share came in between $4.74 and $4.81, well above market estimates of around $4.24. The results were once again supported by the cloud division, with Azure continuing to benefit from strong corporate demand for artificial intelligence services.

The most significant signals to emerge so far point to growth and investment, with cited figures of $130 billion and 5%.

For companies, the key issue is not merely volume growth: revenue quality, customer portfolio resilience and the sustainability of the net margin in the next quarter also matter.

In the short term, commercial execution remains the decisive lever: market-entry timing, channels and market selection could determine the difference between margin expansion and compression.

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The Facebook group will spend $145 billion on AI this year, but the results have yet to materialize. Microsoft’s Azure cloud breaks through the $100 billion mark in annual revenue

Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Satya Nadella (Microsoft)

Meta plunges 9% and Microsoft soars 15% on Wall Street. These are the diverging trajectories of two of the Big Tech companies investing most heavily in artificial intelligence, but which are so far posting different financial and stock-market results. The first, Meta, is still working on the development of its AI solutions, in which it will invest between $130 billion and $145 billion this year alone. The second, Microsoft, is becoming one of the leading infrastructure providers for companies that build and use AI models, and for the first time has broken through the $100 billion mark in annual cloud revenue. Meta’s quarterly results disappointed market expectations, despite a 38% increase in revenue between April and June to $60.8 billion. When it comes to Big Tech, however, investors always expect something exceptional, and the second quarter was not.

For companies, the key issue is not merely volume growth: revenue quality, customer portfolio resilience and the sustainability of the net margin in the next quarter also matter. In the short term, commercial execution remains the decisive lever: market-entry timing, channels and market selection could determine the difference between margin expansion and compression.