Microsoft's Revenue Outlook Slightly Missed Estimates, but With Surprising Strength in Cloud Business

Microsoft provided mixed guidance for the June quarter, while also forecasting accelerating demand and spending tied to the cloud and artificial intelligence. Microsoft sees growth in the Azure business of 30% to 31% in constant currency in the June quarter, which is ahead of the Street consensus forecast of 28%. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told investors on the company's Thursday afternoon conference call that she expects revenue from the company's Productivity and Business Processes segment to be up between 9% and 11% in constant currency, to between $19.9 billion and $20.2 billion, a little shy of the Street consensus as tracked by FactSet at $20.4 billion.