Analysts are doling out praise after Microsoft ‘s latest earnings report. The tech titan earned $3.46 per share on $70.07 billion of revenue during the third fiscal quarter. Analysts polled by LSEG had predicted just $3.22 per share and $68.42 billion in revenue. Microsoft projected 34% to 35% in growth for Azure, its cloud computing platform, at constant currency. That’s ahead of the consensus rate of 31.5% from analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. The stock surged more than 8% in Thursday’s premarket following the report. That offers a reprise for shares, which have slipped more than 6% since 2025 began. Despite the lackluster performance so far this year, most analysts have buy ratings on the megacap tech name, per LSEG. Here’s what some had to say about the company’s report: Wells Fargo Analyst Michael Turrin has an overweight rating and upped his price target by $15 to $515. With that, Turrin expects shares to soar 30.3% over the next year. “MSFT’s FQ3 print showed no real sign of macro weakness, w/ signif Azure upside (both core + AI) & commentary suggesting the commercial biz remains stable. Expect narrative around Azure growth & AI position to improve & shares to re-rate.” JPMorgan Analyst Mark Murphy has an overweight rating and added $10 to his price target, bringing it to $475. Murphy now expects upside of 20.2% over Wednesday’s closing level. Specifically, Murphy called Azure’s performance a “ray of light” for pessimistic investors. “What we clearly failed to anticipate at this juncture is the several points of upside in Azure CC growth, seemingly driven by capacity coming online to serve available AI demand and better execution within the non-AI / ‘core’ compute consumption portion of Azure. Net-net, the apparent lack of any tangible macro stress or strain, including commentary that demand signals across the commercial business were consistent in April and are expected to remain so moving forward, is likely to surprise investors positively.” Citi Analyst Tyler Radke has a buy rating and $480 price target, which suggests shares can climb 21.4%. “Microsoft had an exceptional quarter, with a +4pt beat on Azure, better-than-expected AI demand, continued strong bookings (+18% YoY vs. flat guide) and a strong profitability beat. Non-AI workloads drove the majority of the Azure beat, particularly among large customers. Guidance was also promising, with Azure growth of 34-35% YoY cc (vs. cons 32% YoY) and a reiteration of CapEx spend into FY26. MSFT expects demand to outstrip supply for longer than they anticipated. We expect the stock to trade up on the Azure growth trajectory and see positive read-throughs for other consumption names. With better growth/AI revenue at scale at MSFT we remain buyers.” Goldman Sachs Analyst Kash Rangan has a buy rating on the name. Rangan increased his price target by $30 to $480, now suggesting 21.4% upside. “We are … balanced in our view of the outlook, with the strong execution, share gains, and early demand signals weighed against potential incremental risk with the impact of future tariffs, largely, not factored into guidance. We continue to believe that as Gen-AI moves from the Infrastructure layer to the Platform/Application layers, Microsoft is well positioned to capitalize on this shift, wherein a more capital efficient and higher margin recurring revenue model could become a reality, just as it did during the on-prem to cloud transition.” Barclays Analyst Raimo Lenschow has an overweight rating. Lenschow hiked his price target from $430 to $494, which implies a 25% surge. “It does not often happen that a Mega-cap company can significantly surprise investors with an earnings report, but that is what happened with MSFT. Against low expectations and mixed checks, MSFT delivered a much better quarter highlighted by accelerating Azure growth in Q3 and strong Q4 guidance.”
