According to a research report published by Citigroup, Microsoft's first-quarter performance once again beat expectations, mainly driven by the accelerated growth of Azure and M365 commercial clouds. Among them, Azure's year-on-year growth rate accelerated by 6 percentage points based on a fixed exchange rate. Strong revenue performance combined with the company's strict capital allocation, sales costs were in line with the guidelines. Microsoft Cloud's gross margin improved by 1 percentage point month-on-month, and operating expenses and capital expenses fell short of expectations, driving earnings per share to beat expectations. The bank expects the stock price to continue to rise and maintain a “buy” rating, with a target price of $636.

According to a research report published by Citigroup, Microsoft's first-quarter performance once again beat expectations, mainly driven by the accelerated growth of Azure and M365 commercial clouds. Among them, Azure's year-on-year growth rate accelerated by 6 percentage points based on a fixed exchange rate. Strong revenue performance combined with the company's strict capital allocation, sales costs were in line with the guidelines. Microsoft Cloud's gross margin improved by 1 percentage point month-on-month, and operating expenses and capital expenses fell short of expectations, driving earnings per share to beat expectations. The bank expects the stock price to continue to rise and maintain a “buy” rating, with a target price of $636.