{"id":817225,"date":"2026-10-29T04:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817225\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T04:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:50:08","slug":"microsoft-profits-soar-days-after-announcing-thousands-of-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817225\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft profits soar days after announcing thousands of layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology giant Microsoft says its profits for the three months to the end of September jumped to more than $36.6bn (\u00a327.5bn), just days after announcing plans to cut its workforce by more than a quarter.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Windows developer said it would offer buyouts to around 60,000 of its workers to cut costs as it pours billions of dollars into artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

Like many other major tech firms, Microsoft is investing heavily in the infrastructure that powers AI even as questions remain over whether such huge spending will pay off.<\/p>\n

Microsoft shares rose by almost 2.9% in after hours trading in New York on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The recent financial results of tech companies have been closely watched by investors as they gauge whether the heavy spending on AI is sustainable.<\/p>\n

Big tech companies like Amazon, Meta and Alphabet are expected to spend more than $700bn this year on AI chips and infrastructure like data centres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Microsoft said on Wednesday that its quarterly revenue rose to $92.3bn – up 19% from a year earlier – driven by strong growth in its cloud computing business.<\/p>\n

Its earnings were lifted by a 30% increase in revenue for Microsoft Cloud – its range of enterprise technology services.<\/p>\n

The firm also flagged risks, including “substantial investments” in AI, among other uncertainties that could impact its finances.<\/p>\n

The firm’s chief executive Satya Nadella said AI development has helped grow the adoption of the technology and has delivered “real-world impact across every industry.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Technology giant Microsoft says its profits for the three months to the end of September jumped to more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-817225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}