Microsoft finally opens Azure's books: $33 billion in three months

Microsoft reported its July to September quarter, and this time the release had a line the company kept hidden for years. For the first time Microsoft put Azure revenue in dollars: $33.17 billion for the quarter. Until now it only shared growth percentages and vague milestones.

Azure grew 48% year over year, up from $22.4 billion in the same quarter last year. It is the cloud where companies rent computing power for their apps and for training and running AI models. It is now Microsoft's biggest and fastest growing product line, roughly 36% of total revenue. Analysts expected about $32.3 billion, so Azure beat the forecast by close to a billion.

The rest of the report reads like a company the AI boom pays directly. Total revenue was $92.3 billion, up 19%. Net income was $36.6 billion, up 32%. Microsoft Cloud as a whole brought in $63.9 billion. Commercial remaining performance obligation, the contracts businesses have already signed but not yet paid out, jumped 73% to $677 billion.

Why show the number now? Amazon and Google have long reported their cloud revenue in dollars, and investors were comparing Microsoft to them half blind. Now the comparison is direct, and Microsoft clearly thinks it wins.

Verdict: for now the surest money in AI goes not to the people building models, but to the people renting out the servers.