Microsoft and Meta Have a Bonanza June Quarter

For big tech, business is booming. That’s good, because their costs are also skyrocketing. Microsoft and Meta Platforms both reported better than projected June-quarter earnings on Wednesday, sending stocks of the two leaping 9% and 11.7%, respectively, in after-hours trading. But there may well be a reckoning, as both companies projected sizable increases in spending on artificial intelligence in the next year.

Right now, though, investors and company executives are celebrating. Microsoft, for instance, reported that its Azure cloud service’s revenue rose 39%, several percentage points better than the 34% to 35% growth the company had projected and what it reported for the March quarter. Overall, Microsoft’s top line expanded 18%, 5 percentage points higher than the previous quarter. Sure, much of that acceleration was due to foreign exchange movements going in Microsoft’s direction, but even on a constant currency basis, its revenue grew two points faster.