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| Photo: Naman Shukla |
"Company's Azure platform will continue to be a key revenue driver in the forthcoming year." reports Naman Shukla, GuruFocus Contributor.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
ended 2016 in the green, up more than 10%. Moreover, the stock is off
to a good start this year, with a 5% rise year to date. As a matter of
fact, the company’s upward movement started in early 2013. Since then,
it has continued rewarding investors every year.
Microsoft
reported second-quarter results in January. The company detailed
earnings per share of 83 cents, exceeding analysts' estimate by 4 cents.
The company's revenue came in at $26 billion, again exceeding analysts'
estimate by $790 million. Moreover, that represents growth 4% compared
to a 3% decilne in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year.
According
to a report from marketsandmarkets.com, the artificial intelligence
market is projected to reach $16.06 billion by 2022, a compound annual
growth rate of approximately 63%. Keeping in mind the positive outlook,
the company is making several smart moves to gain huge benefits from
this trend.
Recently,
the tech giant acquired Maluuba, a Canadian startup focused on natural
language processing technology. As per the latest report from Synergy
Research Group, Amazon (AMZN) holds the leading position in the public
cloud market with approximately 40% worldwide revenue market share,
significantly greater than Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), IBM (IBM) and Google (GOOGL) combined.
Naman Shukla ends his article with the following conclusion: "Throughout
the past few years, Microsoft has been performing amazingly well.
Furthermore, its cloud platform looks well-poised to grow at a rapid
pace in the years ahead. In the prior quarter, the revenue generated
from Azure surged 95%."
With
time, Microsoft appears set to to swiftly expand its portfolio of data
and artificial intelligence abilities in Azure. The company has also
made a smart move by launching Connected Vehicle Platform, as it will
further strengthen its Azure platform.
Currently,
Microsoft sits at a second position in the cloud market, and it is
highly likely that its market share will continue surging in the years
ahead.
Source: GuruFocus
