Microsoft has finally put a dollar figure on Azure: the cloud business brought in $33.2 billion in revenue for the July–September quarter, up 48% from a year earlier. It is the first time Microsoft has ever disclosed Azure’s quarterly revenue in dollars, after years of sharing only growth percentages and vague milestones.
Microsoft Azure (Credits: TechCrunch)
The disclosure, made alongside another record-breaking quarter, lets investors compare Azure directly with its rivals for the first time. Alphabet reported on the same day that Google Cloud earned $30.7 billion in the same quarter, putting Azure slightly ahead, though Google Cloud grew roughly twice as fast as Azure by TechCrunch’s calculations.
Microsoft Azure Revenue $33.2 Billion Explained
Azure, where businesses rent computing power to run applications and build AI models, is now Microsoft’s largest and fastest-growing product line. It accounted for roughly 36% of Microsoft’s $92.3 billion in quarterly revenue, and its $33.2 billion haul beat the $32.3 billion analysts had expected. Its 48% growth also topped the 44% to 45% forecast Microsoft CFO Amy Hood gave on the July earnings call.
Microsoft also reshuffled how it reports its business this quarter, introducing two new segments. Azure now sits inside Agents and Infra, which groups it with Microsoft 365’s cloud business and brought in $76.8 billion, up 25% year over year.
How Azure Stacks Up Against AWS and Google Cloud
Amazon reports earnings on Thursday, and analysts expect Amazon Web Services to keep its long-held lead as the largest cloud provider. Nobody expects Microsoft to overtake AWS right now, but with all three giants now reporting actual dollar figures, the cloud race is easier to score than ever, and Azure’s $33.2 billion shows just how close the contest at the top has become.
Also Read: Microsoft Recorded $10 Billion in OpenAI Revenue in One Quarter, Nearly 11% of Total Sales
Source: TechCrunch — read the full story there.
