Microsoft's Q4 earnings and 2020 expectations are through the roof

Microsoft released their Q4 earnings for 2019 an it’s all good news. The giant registered amazing growth on all departments, increasing its share price by one third.

Here’s what Ryan Duguid, Chief Evangelist at Nintex(largest global partner of SharePoint and a Microsoft partner of the year) declared for Windows Report:

Microsoft has repeatedly beaten Wall Street’s expectations this year – its share price is up by one-third – and its latest results only reinforce this trend.

As he confirms, it seems like Azure had a big part to play in all of this:

Azure is a powerful differentiator, and it continues to gain market share. One key to Microsoft’s success with the cloud platform has been its embrace of openness and customer choice in tech stacks, and creating a common data model underneath everything.

It was a record fiscal year for Microsoft, and the numbers exceeded all expectations:

• Revenue was $33.7 billion and increased 12%
• Operating income was $12.4 billion and increased 20%
• Net income was $13.2 billion GAAP and $10.6 billion non-GAAP, and increased 49% and 21%, respectively
• Diluted earnings per share was $1.71 GAAP and $1.37 non-GAAP, and increased 50% and 21%, respectively
• GAAP results include a $2.6 billion net income tax benefit explained in the Non-GAAP Definition section below

Of course, Microsoft’s partnership with many industry leading companies also played a role in the constant development and improvement of their products.

Despite Azure leading the way, Office 365, Windows, and Microsoft Teams also contributed to the growth:

Microsoft is also seeing strong contributions from Office 365, and of course continuing strength in its original cash cow, Windows. It also has had a great year with Teams and has shown real momentum. Teams now claims 13 million users, 30% more than Slack

Ryan Duguid also stated that Microsoft is already planning some big things for next year, with AI and productivity software leading the way:

In 2020, we expect to see Microsoft double down in three key areas to further differentiate from the leading tech giants: AI and ML (across the entire platform), data (infinitely expandable, cost-effective, and supportive of ODI), and modern workplace (productivity software)

Microsoft spent $16.87 billion on research and development in 2019, significantly more than the $14.73 billion spent in 2018.