Microsoft rings up $56.5 billion in Q3 revenues, up by 13%

It’s been a good quarter for Microsoft. Not only was the company’s acquisition of gaming titan Activison Blizzard, the largest of its kind till now, finally concluded last week, but its Quarter 3 Reports showed sustained growth during a turbulent time for tech companies as well as the larger global economy.

The company reported a 13% increase in revenue, amounting to $56.5 billion, while its Search and News Advertising Revenue rose by 10% year on year, excluding traffic acquisition costs. This comes even as Microsoft is betting heavily on the incorporation of OpenAI’s Chat GPT to power its Bing browser in an attempt to break Alphabet’s stranglehold on the Search market.

In his shareholder letter that accompanied the report, Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft wrote, “Although it’s early in our journey, Bing users engaged in more than 1 billion chats and created more than 750 million images over the past year as they apply these new tools to get things done. And Edge has taken share for nine consecutive quarters.”

“More broadly, we continue to expand our opportunity in advertising. This year, Netflix chose us as its exclusive technology and sales partner for its first ad-supported subscription offering, a validation of the differentiated value we provide to any publisher looking for a flexible partner to build and innovate with them,” he added.

Indeed, Microsoft, like its industry peers, is betting big on Generative AI, using it to power everything from the Microsoft Office 360 Suite and its Copilot tool to its Azure platform.

Nadella also noted that LinkedIn’s revenue surpassed $15 billion for the first time this fiscal year on the strength of an 8% increase in revenue. Other highlighted products that saw growth include its Intelligent Cloud unit which generated a revenue of $24.3 billion, thanks to a 29% rise in Azure platform revenue. The Windows OS and Other Products segment also saw sales increase to $13.7 billion, while its business segment saw growth of $18.2 billion.