Microsoft Has Potential to Catch up With Amazon's Cloud: Analyst

Global growth concerns could have tech investors banking on cloud computing revenues fretting, but the industry is still garnering strong demand. Tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are still reporting strong earnings from cloud-based applications despite these future concerns.

“The move to the cloud continues and all the cloud providers are gaining,” said Kim Forrest, a senior portfolio manager with Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC. “Nobody is losing, it’s just some people are faster than others.”

A snapshot of Microsoft’s latest earnings report:

  • Earnings: $1.10 per share, excluding certain items, vs. $1.09 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
  • Revenue: $32.47 billion, vs. $32.51 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

“Within the next five years I don’t envision Azure catching up,” said Brent Bracelin, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

According to Bracelin, Azure could be bigger if AWS is still part of Amazon within the next 10 years.