After experiencing difficult cost reduction strategies, the performance of technology companies in the United States is rebounding. Google and Microsoft released financial reports on October 24th, marking the beginning of the financial reports of American technology companies.
Google's revenue increased by 11% in the latest quarter to $76.7 billion, with a profit of $19.7 billion; Microsoft's revenue increased by 13% to $56.5 billion, and its profit increased by 27% year-on-year to $22.3 billion. The performance of both companies exceeded market expectations.
However, after Google's financial report was released, its stock price plummeted by 7%, mainly due to market disappointment with the company's cloud business performance. According to the financial report, Google's cloud business revenue was $8.4 billion, and although it grew by more than 22%, it still recorded the slowest growth rate in 11 quarters and fell short of analysts' expectations. The market is concerned that Google is lagging behind its competitors Amazon AWS and Microsoft Cloud Azure in terms of cloud platforms.
Microsoft's quarterly financial report shows that in key cloud business areas, Microsoft's cloud business sales increased by 19% year-on-year to $24.3 billion, becoming the largest driving force for the company's business growth, contributing over 40% of revenue. This is mainly due to the industry's investment in artificial intelligence technology.
After Microsoft released its financial report, its stock price rose by about 5%. Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup with a strong growth in artificial intelligence and cloud services. Its market value is currently close to $2.5 trillion, and it is expected to become the next American company to enter the $3 trillion club; Google's market value is also close to $1.8 trillion.
Krishna Chintalapalli, investment manager at fund company Parnassus Investments, analyzed the different strategies of Microsoft and Google in terms of artificial intelligence layout. He believes that Google prioritizes attracting artificial intelligence startups as customers for its cloud business, while Microsoft relies on its existing customers, who tend to be larger in scale and spend more on the cloud, as reflected in the performance of both companies.
Both Microsoft and Google have promised to continue increasing investment in artificial intelligence to meet growing demand. Microsoft's total expenditure this year is expected to reach a record high of $44 billion.
Currently, in the global cloud service market, Amazon Cloud AWS holds the largest share, Microsoft Cloud Azure ranks second, and Google ranks third. Amazon will release its quarterly financial report on Thursday, and analysts expect AWS sales to increase by 12.4%.
In addition to enterprise customers, cloud service providers also target the government. Amazon's cloud computing department AWS announced on Wednesday that it will launch a "sovereign cloud" in Europe for customers in government and highly regulated industries.
AWS stated in a statement that the 'Sovereign Cloud' will store data on servers located in the European Union, and only AWS employees who are EU residents can control operations and provide support.
Government clients are increasingly using public clouds provided by large technology company data centers instead of building their own infrastructure. Microsoft and Oracle have also launched corresponding cloud service versions for European government customers.