Microsoft’s fiscal fourth quarter delivered a number that reshapes the AI infrastructure debate: Azure revenue surpassed $100 billion for the first full fiscal year, while the company added roughly 10 million paid Copilot seats in a single quarter. The stock surged as much as 8.8% in premarket trading after the results landed, reflecting relief that commercial demand is broadening beyond a handful of frontier-model customers.
Total quarterly revenue reached $90.0 billion, up 18% year-over-year, and GAAP diluted earnings per share hit $4.81, a 32% increase. On a non-GAAP basis, which strips out the impact of OpenAI-related investment marks, EPS was $4.74, still comfortably ahead of the consensus estimate of $4.24. The beat was powered by cloud momentum: Microsoft Cloud revenue grew 27% to $59.3 billion, while the Intelligent Cloud segment—home to Azure—rose 32% to $39.3 billion.
Azure itself accelerated to 43% growth in the quarter, and management guided for approximately 45% growth in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, signaling that capacity constraints are easing faster than many had expected. The company added 31 new data centers across five continents during the quarter, bringing the full-year total to 88, and spent $41 billion in capital expenditures, roughly two-thirds of which went toward short-lived assets such as CPUs and GPUs.