Microsoft’s Stock Fair Value Estimate Cut on Lower Forecasts for Revenue Growth, Operating Margins

Microsoft Stock at a Glance

• Current Morningstar Fair Value Estimate: $320
• Microsoft Stock Star Rating: 4 Stars
• Economic Moat Rating: Wide
• Moat Trend Rating: Stable

Microsoft Earnings Update

Microsoft (MSFT) reported solid fiscal first-quarter 2023 results, including revenue and EPS results ahead of the guidance midpoints. The outlook, however, was worse than our below-consensus model was contemplating. Macro pressures continue to weigh on the company’s performance. Bulls can point to good growth in commercial bookings and commercial remaining performance obligation to find near-term comfort, while bears will no doubt highlight slowing Azure and weaker-than-expected guidance. We continue to find encouragement in Azure, Office E5 migration, and traction with the Power platform for long-term value creation, but we think near-term pressures will not be exhausted within the next quarter. It is premature to say the Azure growth story is over despite the slowdown. We see results as reinforcing our thesis centering on the proliferation of hybrid cloud environments and Azure, as the firm continues to use its on-premises dominance to allow clients to move to the cloud at their own pace.

Based on guidance, we have lowered our revenue growth and operating margin forecasts for both fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024, and are thus lowering our fair value estimate for wide-moat Microsoft to $320 per share, from $352, and view shares as attractive.

For the September quarter, revenue grew 11% year over year as reported, or 16% in constant currency, to $50.12 billion, compared with the midpoint of guidance of $49.75 billion and FactSet consensus at $49.76 billion. Compared with the year-ago period as reported, productivity and business processes, or PBP, grew 9%, intelligent cloud, or IC, grew 20%, and more personal computing, or MPC, was flat. Relative to guidance, PBP and MPC both did well, while IC lagged. We were expecting some more softness in LinkedIn, Windows, Bing, and gaming given their advertising and consumer exposures. Key pillars of our growth narrative from the quarter included year-over-year growth in constant currency in Azure of 42% and Dynamics 365 of 32%.