Having fluctuated between both sides of the flatline, Microsoft shares rose by 1% after the company’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations. Microsoft raked in earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 on revenue of $62 billion, beating expectations of $2.78 EPS on revenue of $61.1 billion. The PC maker’s cloud business raked in $33.7 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $33.2 billion in revenue.

Google’s parent company Alphabet slumped by 5% after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that failed to meet expectations. While total revenue of $72 billion beat a projected $71 billion, investors appeared more focused on the company’s inability to meet ad revenue expectations of $65.8 billion, with Alphabet earning $65.5 billion. Chipmaker AMD was also down 2% after hours with its earnings falling largely in line with expectations. AMD reported revenue of approximately $5.4 billion.

The post Nasdaq Slips as Tech Earnings Roll In appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

“Today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared on Thursday. This funding will more than double Microsoft’s data center footprint in Britain.

According to the UK government, this investment will be used by Microsoft to bring over 20,000 of its state-of-the-art Graphics Processing Units to Britain, thereby providing a launchpad for machine learning and developing AI. Plans also include training local British workers so that they are equipped with the skills they need to build and work with AI.

The post Microsoft to Invest $3.2 Billion in UK in AI Push appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The company’s Intelligent Cloud segment was a particularly strong performer, generating $24.3 billion in revenue for the quarter. This beat analysts’ estimates of $23.6 billion. The revenue for Azure and other cloud services rose by 29%, outpacing estimates of a 27% growth.

“With copilots, we are making the age of AI real for people and businesses everywhere,” company CEO Satya Nadella announced in a statement. “We are rapidly infusing AI across every layer of the tech stack and for every role and business process to drive productivity gains for our customers.”

The post Microsoft Stocks Rise Following Q3 Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Alphabet shares declined by over 8% after it beat revenue and earnings targets yet fell short with its cloud business. Still, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that his company is seeing “a lot of interest in AI”, attempting to inject hope into what appeared to be a disappointing third quarter.

Microsoft stocks gained 4% after it was shown that its AI business was taking off, while its cloud business grew by 3%. “Some of the improvements, we’re making in Azure and even in Microsoft 365 gross margins, even in the core of the commercial cloud, it speaks to the pace at which we are delivering AI revenue with the increasing cost expense and capital investment ahead with the demand we see,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood observed.

The post Stocks Dip Following Alphabet and Microsoft Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index advanced by 0.6%, while the Dow Jones was up by 0.3% to mark its 12th consecutive day of gains. The S&P 500 index rose by 0.3%.

Earnings reports from Microsoft and Alphabet are due to be released after the market’s close on Tuesday. These results are widely expected to provide an outlook of what Big Tech earnings should look like going forward.

In addition to tech earnings, the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy decision is also occupying a space in investors’ minds. The central bank’s two-day July meeting begins on Tuesday. Most analysts expect an interest rate hike to be implemented.

Going against the grain, General Motors stocks fell by 4% at midday despite the company’s strong second-quarter earnings results. Spotify shares plunged by 14% after the music streaming platform reported a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter despite a large influx in subscribers.

The post Nasdaq Leads Stock Gains as Alphabet And Microsoft Earnings in Focus appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Back in early 2022, Microsoft agreed to pay $69 billion for Activision but almost instantly met with resistance from regulators in the U.S. and Great Britain. Both U.S. Federal Trade Commission and British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) expressed concerns about the deal’s impact on the competition in the industry.

Microsoft won its case against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which sought to halt the deal, earlier this month and was set to have an appeal hearing in the case with CMA over the matter later this month. However, Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ended up affording both Microsoft and CMA extra time to try and get to an agreement.

Prior to the CAT’s decision, Microsoft submitted a modified proposal, and CMA expressed willingness to review it.

“Based upon the discussion to date, both sides – Microsoft and the CMA – have confidence that Microsoft notifying a restructured transaction is capable of addressing the concerns that the CMA has identified,” CMA’s lawyer David Bailey said in a statement.

The post Microsoft Afforded Extra Time to Resolve Activision Deal Issues With British Regulators appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

China’s approval was slightly unexpected after Activision Blizzard stopped offering many of its games in the country earlier this year due to a dispute with a local publishing partner.

According to Chinese law, game sales in mainland China can only be made on the condition that game-makers work with a Chinese publisher to release video games in the country. Following a disagreement between Activision subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment and its Chinese partner, NetEase, sales of several leading Activision titles have been suspended, including the likes of World of Warcraft, the StarCraft series, Overwatch and Diablo.

The deal, which is expected to be worth approximately $69 billion, was also approved by the European Union. EU regulators approved the deal on Monday on the condition that Microsoft fulfills promises made around boosting competition in the emerging cloud-based gaming market.

Microsoft’s plan to acquire Activision Blizzard has now been passed by 37 countries. It is set to become the most expensive tech deal in history.

The post Microsoft Announces That China Approved Plan to Acquire Activision Blizzard appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Having invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, Microsoft is looking to have access to the company’s AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure, using such resources to build and run their applications.

“We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced.

“We’ve worked together to build multiple supercomputing systems powered by Azure, which we use to train all of our models. Azure’s unique architectural design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale for our AI training and inference workloads. Microsoft will increase their investment in these systems to accelerate our independent research and Azure will remain the exclusive cloud provider for all OpenAI workloads across our research, API, and products.”

Microsoft’s decision to invest comes at a precarious time, with the company announcing its decision to lay off 10,000 employees by the end of Q3.

The post Microsoft Preparing Multi-Billion Dollar Investment in OpenAI appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

This comes after the tech giant saw a decline in PC sales and cloud growth. “As we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less,” CEO Satya Nadella said of the decision. He further explained that organizations across a broad range of industries are exercising caution amid growing recession concerns.

Prior to announcing the mass workforce reduction, Microsoft took several steps to reduce costs, including a slow down in hiring in its Windows, Office, and Teams divisions last May. The company went on to lay off 1% of its workforce in July before cutting another 1,000 jobs in October.

Microsoft’s PC sales have slowed dramatically since the coronavirus pandemic when customers were buying desktops and laptops en masse as they transitioned to work-from-home models, homeschooling, and playing games. Gartner reported a 28.5% worldwide decline in PC shipments during the fourth quarter of 2022 – the largest decline since this figure was first tracked during the mid-1990s.

The post Microsoft to Cut 10,000 Jobs Following Sales Decline appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Reportedly, Microsoft will lay off one percent of its employees. This might not sound much at first until you consider that the company employs around 180,000 people. Also, the layoffs don’t seem to be based on the departments or have some geographical pattern.

“Today we had a small number of role eliminations,” said Microsoft in a statement sent to Bloomberg. “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis and make structural adjustments accordingly.”

The news comes after Microsoft previously made a decision to slow down its hiring and become less aggressive in terms of recruiting. However, the company still claims its overall number of employees will substantially increase by the end of the year.

“We will continue to invest in our business and grow headcount overall in the year ahead,” Microsoft’s statement added.

Microsoft is the latest tech company to trim down its workforce. The social media platform Twitter recently let go a third of its recruiting team, while Oracle is reportedly considering laying off thousands.

The post Microsoft Becomes the Latest Company to Engage in Workforce Layoffs appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Having fluctuated between both sides of the flatline, Microsoft shares rose by 1% after the company’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations. Microsoft raked in earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 on revenue of $62 billion, beating expectations of $2.78 EPS on revenue of $61.1 billion. The PC maker’s cloud business raked in $33.7 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $33.2 billion in revenue.

Google’s parent company Alphabet slumped by 5% after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that failed to meet expectations. While total revenue of $72 billion beat a projected $71 billion, investors appeared more focused on the company’s inability to meet ad revenue expectations of $65.8 billion, with Alphabet earning $65.5 billion. Chipmaker AMD was also down 2% after hours with its earnings falling largely in line with expectations. AMD reported revenue of approximately $5.4 billion.

The post Nasdaq Slips as Tech Earnings Roll In appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

“Today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared on Thursday. This funding will more than double Microsoft’s data center footprint in Britain.

According to the UK government, this investment will be used by Microsoft to bring over 20,000 of its state-of-the-art Graphics Processing Units to Britain, thereby providing a launchpad for machine learning and developing AI. Plans also include training local British workers so that they are equipped with the skills they need to build and work with AI.

The post Microsoft to Invest $3.2 Billion in UK in AI Push appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The company’s Intelligent Cloud segment was a particularly strong performer, generating $24.3 billion in revenue for the quarter. This beat analysts’ estimates of $23.6 billion. The revenue for Azure and other cloud services rose by 29%, outpacing estimates of a 27% growth.

“With copilots, we are making the age of AI real for people and businesses everywhere,” company CEO Satya Nadella announced in a statement. “We are rapidly infusing AI across every layer of the tech stack and for every role and business process to drive productivity gains for our customers.”

The post Microsoft Stocks Rise Following Q3 Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Alphabet shares declined by over 8% after it beat revenue and earnings targets yet fell short with its cloud business. Still, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that his company is seeing “a lot of interest in AI”, attempting to inject hope into what appeared to be a disappointing third quarter.

Microsoft stocks gained 4% after it was shown that its AI business was taking off, while its cloud business grew by 3%. “Some of the improvements, we’re making in Azure and even in Microsoft 365 gross margins, even in the core of the commercial cloud, it speaks to the pace at which we are delivering AI revenue with the increasing cost expense and capital investment ahead with the demand we see,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood observed.

The post Stocks Dip Following Alphabet and Microsoft Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index advanced by 0.6%, while the Dow Jones was up by 0.3% to mark its 12th consecutive day of gains. The S&P 500 index rose by 0.3%.

Earnings reports from Microsoft and Alphabet are due to be released after the market’s close on Tuesday. These results are widely expected to provide an outlook of what Big Tech earnings should look like going forward.

In addition to tech earnings, the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy decision is also occupying a space in investors’ minds. The central bank’s two-day July meeting begins on Tuesday. Most analysts expect an interest rate hike to be implemented.

Going against the grain, General Motors stocks fell by 4% at midday despite the company’s strong second-quarter earnings results. Spotify shares plunged by 14% after the music streaming platform reported a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter despite a large influx in subscribers.

The post Nasdaq Leads Stock Gains as Alphabet And Microsoft Earnings in Focus appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Back in early 2022, Microsoft agreed to pay $69 billion for Activision but almost instantly met with resistance from regulators in the U.S. and Great Britain. Both U.S. Federal Trade Commission and British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) expressed concerns about the deal’s impact on the competition in the industry.

Microsoft won its case against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which sought to halt the deal, earlier this month and was set to have an appeal hearing in the case with CMA over the matter later this month. However, Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ended up affording both Microsoft and CMA extra time to try and get to an agreement.

Prior to the CAT’s decision, Microsoft submitted a modified proposal, and CMA expressed willingness to review it.

“Based upon the discussion to date, both sides – Microsoft and the CMA – have confidence that Microsoft notifying a restructured transaction is capable of addressing the concerns that the CMA has identified,” CMA’s lawyer David Bailey said in a statement.

The post Microsoft Afforded Extra Time to Resolve Activision Deal Issues With British Regulators appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

China’s approval was slightly unexpected after Activision Blizzard stopped offering many of its games in the country earlier this year due to a dispute with a local publishing partner.

According to Chinese law, game sales in mainland China can only be made on the condition that game-makers work with a Chinese publisher to release video games in the country. Following a disagreement between Activision subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment and its Chinese partner, NetEase, sales of several leading Activision titles have been suspended, including the likes of World of Warcraft, the StarCraft series, Overwatch and Diablo.

The deal, which is expected to be worth approximately $69 billion, was also approved by the European Union. EU regulators approved the deal on Monday on the condition that Microsoft fulfills promises made around boosting competition in the emerging cloud-based gaming market.

Microsoft’s plan to acquire Activision Blizzard has now been passed by 37 countries. It is set to become the most expensive tech deal in history.

The post Microsoft Announces That China Approved Plan to Acquire Activision Blizzard appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Having invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, Microsoft is looking to have access to the company’s AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure, using such resources to build and run their applications.

“We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced.

“We’ve worked together to build multiple supercomputing systems powered by Azure, which we use to train all of our models. Azure’s unique architectural design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale for our AI training and inference workloads. Microsoft will increase their investment in these systems to accelerate our independent research and Azure will remain the exclusive cloud provider for all OpenAI workloads across our research, API, and products.”

Microsoft’s decision to invest comes at a precarious time, with the company announcing its decision to lay off 10,000 employees by the end of Q3.

The post Microsoft Preparing Multi-Billion Dollar Investment in OpenAI appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

This comes after the tech giant saw a decline in PC sales and cloud growth. “As we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less,” CEO Satya Nadella said of the decision. He further explained that organizations across a broad range of industries are exercising caution amid growing recession concerns.

Prior to announcing the mass workforce reduction, Microsoft took several steps to reduce costs, including a slow down in hiring in its Windows, Office, and Teams divisions last May. The company went on to lay off 1% of its workforce in July before cutting another 1,000 jobs in October.

Microsoft’s PC sales have slowed dramatically since the coronavirus pandemic when customers were buying desktops and laptops en masse as they transitioned to work-from-home models, homeschooling, and playing games. Gartner reported a 28.5% worldwide decline in PC shipments during the fourth quarter of 2022 – the largest decline since this figure was first tracked during the mid-1990s.

The post Microsoft to Cut 10,000 Jobs Following Sales Decline appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Reportedly, Microsoft will lay off one percent of its employees. This might not sound much at first until you consider that the company employs around 180,000 people. Also, the layoffs don’t seem to be based on the departments or have some geographical pattern.

“Today we had a small number of role eliminations,” said Microsoft in a statement sent to Bloomberg. “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis and make structural adjustments accordingly.”

The news comes after Microsoft previously made a decision to slow down its hiring and become less aggressive in terms of recruiting. However, the company still claims its overall number of employees will substantially increase by the end of the year.

“We will continue to invest in our business and grow headcount overall in the year ahead,” Microsoft’s statement added.

Microsoft is the latest tech company to trim down its workforce. The social media platform Twitter recently let go a third of its recruiting team, while Oracle is reportedly considering laying off thousands.

The post Microsoft Becomes the Latest Company to Engage in Workforce Layoffs appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.