Investment Thesis: Microsoft
This issue's recommendation is one of the enduring companies of our generation and has been at the forefront of technological innovation for over four decades. We believe it is an excellent choice for a long-term investment that can yield satisfactory returns.
This recommendation is just a start, the next step is to do your due diligence process which will then help you to make the investment decision. We strongly advise investors to do a thorough analysis of the recommendation and understand the soundness of the business before investing in this company. Also, please consult your investment advisor before making a decision.
Business Profile (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Microsoft Corp engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes; Intelligent Cloud; and More Personal Computing.
The Productivity and Business Processes segment comprises products and services in the portfolio of productivity, communication, and information services of the company spanning a variety of devices and platforms. The Intelligent Cloud segment refers to the public, private, and hybrid server products and cloud services of the company which can power modern business. The Personal Computing segment encompasses products and services geared towards the interests of end users, developers, and IT professionals across all devices.
The firm also offers operating systems; cross-device productivity applications; server applications; business solution applications; desktop and server management tools; software development tools; video games; personal computers, tablets; gaming and entertainment consoles; other intelligent devices; and related accessories.
The company was founded by Paul Gardner Allen and Bill Gates in 1975 and is headquartered in Redmond, WA. In the meantime, the company has grown to become one of the world's leading technology giants.
Story
Microsoft should be a core long-term portfolio holding for any long-term investor. Very few companies, if any, offer such a combination of a high-quality business and longevity, as well as exposure to many high-growth sectors, including GenAI, cybersecurity, cloud, and gaming.
Microsoft's strong presence in the public cloud, backed by extensive distribution channels and an established customer base, paves the way for a market capitalization exceeding $3 trillion.
The company's potential for sustained double-digit revenue growth is underpinned by various factors. Firstly, Azure's success in the public cloud arena positions Microsoft for continued growth. This is complemented by Microsoft's increasing market share in data centers, benefiting from favorable pricing trends.
Office 365 contributes to growth, through an expanding user base and higher average revenue per user. Additionally, the acquisition of LinkedIn has diversified Microsoft's revenue streams, tapping into the professional networking and related services sector.
Furthermore, ongoing improvements in gross margins enhance overall profitability, while a commitment to operational efficiency helps control operating expenses. Microsoft's strong capital return policies provide a solid foundation for investors seeking a durable total return profile.
The company’s primary business focus is on software, hardware, and cloud services. Overall, software is at the core of Microsoft's operations. They are renowned for their flagship operating system, Windows, which powers millions of personal computers globally. Additionally, Microsoft Office, including applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, is widely used for productivity.
Highlights from 2022 annual report
[Fiscal Year 2022 Compared with Fiscal Year 2021]
Segment: Intelligent Cloud
Revenue increased $15.2 billion or 25%.
- Server products and cloud services revenue increased $14.7 billion or 28% driven by Azure and other cloud services. Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 45% driven by growth in our consumption-based services. Server products revenue increased 5% driven by hybrid solutions, including Windows Server and SQL Server running in multi-cloud environments.
- Enterprise Services revenue increased $464 million or 7% driven by growth in Enterprise Support Services.
Operating income increased $6.6 billion or 25%.
- Gross margin increased $9.4 billion or 22% driven by growth in Azure and other cloud services. Gross margin percentage decreased. Excluding the impact of the change in accounting estimate, gross margin percentage was relatively unchanged driven by improvement in Azure and other cloud services, offset in part by sales mix shift to Azure and other cloud services.
- Operating expenses increased $2.8 billion or 16% driven by investments in Azure and other cloud services.
Revenue and operating income included an unfavorable foreign currency impact of 2% and 3%, respectively.
Segment: Productivity and Business Processes
Revenue increased $9.4 billion or 18%.
- Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased $4.4 billion or 13%. Office 365 Commercial revenue grew 18% driven by seat growth of 14%, with continued momentum in small and medium business and frontline worker offerings, as well as growth in revenue per user. Office Commercial products revenue declined 22% driven by continued customer shift to cloud offerings.
- Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased $641 million or 11% driven by Microsoft 365 Consumer subscription revenue. Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers grew 15% to 59.7 million.
- LinkedIn revenue increased $3.5 billion or 34% driven by a strong job market in our Talent Solutions business and advertising demand in our Marketing Solutions business.
- Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 25% driven by Dynamics 365 growth of 39%.
Operating income increased $5.3 billion or 22%.
- Gross margin increased $7.3 billion or 17% driven by growth in Office 365 Commercial and LinkedIn. Gross margin percentage was relatively unchanged. Excluding the impact of the change in accounting estimate, gross margin percentage increased 2 points driven by improvement across all cloud services.
- Operating expenses increased $2.0 billion or 11% driven by investments in LinkedIn and cloud engineering.
Gross margin and operating income both included an unfavorable foreign currency impact of 2%.
Segment: More Personal Computing
Revenue increased $5.6 billion or 10%.
- Windows revenue increased $2.3 billion or 10% driven by growth in Windows OEM and Windows Commercial. Windows OEM revenue increased 11% driven by continued strength in the commercial PC market, which has higher revenue per license. Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 11% driven by demand for Microsoft 365.
- Search and news advertising revenue increased $2.3 billion or 25%. Search and news advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 27% driven by higher revenue per search and search volume.
- Gaming revenue increased $860 million or 6% on a strong prior year comparable that benefited from Xbox Series X|S launches and stay-at-home scenarios, driven by growth in Xbox hardware and Xbox content and services. Xbox hardware revenue increased 16% due to continued demand for Xbox Series X|S. Xbox content and services revenue increased 3% driven by growth in Xbox Game Pass subscriptions and first- party content, offset in part by a decline in third-party content.
- Surface revenue increased $226 million or 3%.
Operating income increased $1.5 billion or 8%.
- Gross margin increased $3.1 billion or 10% driven by growth in Windows and Search and news advertising. Gross margin percentage was relatively unchanged.
- Operating expenses increased $1.5 billion or 14% driven by investments in Gaming, Search and news advertising, and Windows marketing.
Microsoft holds a strong market leadership position in anticipation of a significant AI-driven technology cycle. This positions the company favorably for sustained double-digit growth in earnings over the coming years. Though we have limited visibility for fiscal year 2024 due to ongoing macro challenges, we have strong confidence in Microsoft's enduring leadership in the field of cloud and AI.
Azure
Microsoft's Azure platform is positioned as the global computing solution with a remarkable presence of over 60 datacenter regions. This extensive network ensures faster access to cloud services and addresses critical data residency requirements. Azure Arc extends the reach of Azure to virtually anywhere, allowing customers to run applications across on-premises, edge, or multi cloud environments, meeting them where they are.
Microsoft's commitment to staying at the forefront of technology extends to the 5G network edge with Azure for Operators. This initiative introduces solutions to assist telecom operators in delivering ultra-low-latency services, bringing digital capabilities closer to end-users.
Moreover, Azure places Microsoft in an envious position for the upcoming AI-focused era. More precisely, Microsoft launched Azure AI – a comprehensive suite of AI services tailored for developers and data scientists, aimed at maximizing productivity and efficiency. Azure AI provides a flexible platform for building and deploying AI solutions.
While Azure revenue cloud growth slowed to 26% in F4Q23, the segment’s sales growth is expected to accelerate going forward as cloud optimization efforts decrease, while AI activity is starting to pick up. Azure growing at 30%+ annually should fuel Microsoft’s long-term outperformance.
In the second quarter of 2023, Microsoft had a 22% market share in the cloud infrastructure market. Amazon Web Services (AWS) maintained its position as a leader in the market, despite a slight dip in market share from 34% to 32%.
Microsoft and Google, experienced slightly stronger year-over-year growth, allowing both to increase their market share by one percentage point compared to the same quarter in 2022. During Q2 2023, the global spending on cloud infrastructure services surged by $10 billion compared to the same period in 2022, reaching a total expenditure of $64.8 billion for the three months ending on June 30.
AI
Microsoft made a huge bet earlier this year when it invested billions of dollars in the ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Microsoft's collaboration with OpenAI holds the potential for substantial new revenue streams, potentially reaching billions of dollars annually as the demand for AI-driven workloads grows within Azure.
The investment in OpenAI, which valued the AI company at around $29 billion earlier this year, allows Microsoft to integrate OpenAI's technology across multiple facets of its ecosystem. This includes incorporating OpenAI's capabilities into the Bing search engine, sales and marketing software, GitHub coding tools, the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, and the Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft offers a comprehensive data stack that empowers organizations to harness the full potential of their data for predictive and analytical purposes. With the introduction of the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform, the company further simplified the data landscape, allowing customers to focus on creating value rather than dealing with fragmented data systems.
For instance, Microsoft’s Cosmos DB database has the ability to handle the most demanding and mission-critical workloads, scalable to any size. Azure Synapse bridges the gap between enterprise data warehousing and big data analytics, fostering collaboration and simplifying analytics solution management.
Microsoft Purview defines a new market category by enabling organizations to effectively govern, protect, and manage their data assets across diverse platforms and cloud environments.
These efforts come at a time when the world is witnessing a significant shift as large AI models themselves become platforms. Microsoft is investing billions to be at the forefront of this transformation, with tools like the Azure OpenAI Service. This service leverages advanced coding and language models to address various use cases, including writing assistance, code generation, and data analysis.
Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nuance Communications in March 2022. The acquisition involved a total purchase price of $18.8 billion, primarily in cash. Nuance is known for its expertise in cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) software, particularly in the healthcare and enterprise sectors. This strategic acquisition is expected to further enhance Microsoft's industry-specific cloud solutions, leveraging Nuance's AI capabilities and experience.
Office Commercial products
Microsoft 365 integrates Office 365, Windows, and Enterprise Mobility + Security into a comprehensive suite aimed at assisting organizations in providing their employees with AI-driven tools. These tools are designed to enhance creativity, foster collaboration, and stimulate innovation within the workplace.
For 2022, Microsoft also reported strong revenue growth in both its Office Commercial and Office Consumer segments. The former and Cloud Services revenue increased by 13%, driven by Office 365 Commercial's impressive growth of 18%. Meanwhile, the latter and Cloud Services revenue saw an 11% increase, and the number of Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers reached 59.7 million.
Microsoft Teams vs Slack
The Office 365 suite (bundle) is a dominant force in the productivity application space for a long time. Microsoft's Office 365 has made headway as it boosted its market share, driven by more flexible pricing, better support, and familiarity with legacy products. Office has a strong brand and benefits from the network effect, especially as collaboration and file sharing become more commonplace in business operations. Office solidified supply-side economies of scale by combining cloud services and Windows at the company-wide level.
Many organizations have adopted Teams for workplace collaboration and communication. The app has proven to be an effective, all in one solution for group-file sharing, collaboration, and seamless chats between users, especially in a digital workplace. End-users have found the tool to be a vital Office 365 suite feature.
Teams is cost-effective, as it's included in the Office 365 monthly subscription, and regularly updated with the suite's upgrades and security patches. This means IT admins can budget more easily, and businesses with Office 365 subscriptions have access to Teams as part of their package. This makes Office 365 a dominant force and creates a moat for Microsoft. As an example, MIcrosoft Teams product which is one of the Office 365 products beat Slack in the short period of time and became a leader in the productivity application space.
Windows
In 2022, Microsoft unveiled Windows 11, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of their operating system. This update is the most substantial in a decade, brings about a complete reimagination of the user experience and the app store.
The company said there are now over 1.4 billion monthly active devices running either Windows 10 or Windows 11. Microsoft has expanded its hardware offerings with new Surface devices designed to cater to a wide range of user preferences and work styles.
On the software front, they have achieved substantial success, boasting nearly 60 million Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions.
Combining all versions of Windows, Microsoft has nearly 75% share in the desktop operating system (OS) market. It has a strong brand identity, and users are very familiar with the OS. It comes with most new personal computers, illustrating and entrenching its wide moat in this category.
LinkedIn has evolved into a robust business platform, facilitating connections between creators and their communities, job seekers and opportunities, learners and skill development, and marketers and their target audiences. The platform boasts an impressive user base, with over 850 million members.
Notably, LinkedIn has achieved significant financial milestones, with its Sales, Talent, Marketing, and Premium Subscriptions business lines all surpassing $1 billion in annual revenue over the past year.
This reflects the platform's substantial impact across various segments, making it an integral part of professional networking, talent acquisition, marketing, and skill development for a vast user base.
Security
Microsoft has been aggressively investing in cybersecurity in recent years as surveys show that cybersecurity stands out as the foremost threat in today’s business landscape. Microsoft is working to offer comprehensive solutions that cover security, compliance, identity management, device security, and privacy across diverse cloud environments and platforms.
The company is focused on providing multi cloud protection, with products like the innovative Entra product family that introduces tools for permissions management, identity governance, and identity verification, further enhancing its security offerings.
Additionally, Microsoft recently started to offer products for threat detection and response services, staffed by Microsoft Security Experts, to bolster customers' defenses against evolving cybersecurity threats.
Along these lines, the company announced several acquisitions in recent years, aimed at boosting its cybersecurity portfolio.
Gaming
Microsoft’s flagship product in this segment is the gaming console Xbox. Products like Xbox Series S and Series X consoles have exceeded previous generations, reflecting the strength of the company’s gaming ecosystem.
Through Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft is expanding the accessibility of games to entirely new platforms. Over the past year, the company’s gaming efforts focused on adding more popular titles available on smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and low-spec PCs.
Today, Xbox Game Pass subscription service offers access to hundreds of games, providing gamers with a vast library of choices. Most importantly, the company’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion will further enhance player choice, enabling them to enjoy great games on their own terms, be it on console, PC, or mobile. The deal is subject to regulatory approval, with Microsoft and Activision making strong progress in this field in recent months.
The idea behind this acquisition is to support game developers by offering diverse distribution and business models, fostering innovation, and contributing to the growth of the gaming industry as a whole. Activision generated $7.53 billion in 2022 revenue, thanks to its family of games like Call of Duty, Diablo, Tony Hawk’s, Warcraft, etc.
Risk
Some of the risks facing Microsoft include a tough macroeconomic environment, competition, increasing GenAI investments, as well as any new mega acquisitions that could weigh on profits and margins. The Windows business could face challenges given the difficult macro environment. For instance, ongoing supply chain constraints may impact production and sales in this segment.
Microsoft competes aggressively in the hyperscale cloud market against giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This competition demands substantial investments to maintain competitiveness. Microsoft must continually invest to keep pace with the rapidly evolving cloud industry.
Third, if Microsoft makes a substantial acquisition, it may result in near-term earnings dilution. The company spent $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. Integrating a large acquisition can be complex, and it may take time to realize the full benefits. Shareholders could experience temporary pressure on earnings and returns.
Overall, the tech behemoth faces risks in a competitive and dynamic technology landscape, particularly in the areas of hardware and cloud services. Careful management and strategic decision-making will be essential to navigate these potential challenges successfully.
Leadership
Over the course of its 46-year history, Microsoft has seen only three CEOs, each of whom has left their distinct imprint on the company: Bill Gates, Gates' college roommate Steve Ballmer, and, most recently, long-time Microsoft executive Satya Nadella.
Under Nadella's guidance, Microsoft has undergone a transformation, emphasizing the enhancement of its existing software and making its productivity suite accessible across various platforms. Since assuming the role of CEO in 2014, Nadella has propelled the software giant to new heights, achieving record profits and quadrupling the company's share value.
Nadella’s team includes Judson Althoff, Microsoft's EVP of Worldwide Commercial Business. Under his leadership, Microsoft achieved significant milestones, doubling its revenue and tripling its growth in cloud services.
Amy Hood serves as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Microsoft, overseeing the company's global finance organization. Hood plays a pivotal role in Microsoft's financial strategies and operations, contributing to the company's overall financial success.
CEO Nadella owns 1,337,768 shares of Microsoft stock, representing 0.02% of total shares outstanding. President Smith Smith owns 845,058 shares of Microsoft stock, representing 0.01% of total shares outstanding.
Jean-Philippe Courtois, the company’s Executive Vice President and President of Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations, owns 600,510 shares of Microsoft, representing 0.01% of total shares outstanding.
CEO Nadella maintained his base salary at $2.50 million for the third consecutive year in 2022. However, his total compensation increased by 10.2% to reach $54.95 million. This total compensation package includes stock awards and performance stock awards valued at $42.27 million at the time of grant, up from $33.04 million in the previous year. Additionally, non-equity incentive plan compensation amounted to $10.07 million, a decrease from $14.21 million in 2021.
The following data snapshots are as of 09/15/2023 from tradingview website
Key Stats
Performance: Microsoft vs S&P 500 (10 Years)
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Income Statement
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Dividends
Sources: Microsoft Investor Relations | Microsoft News | Yahoo News | Statista | Compounder Fund | Investopedia | Investing.com | FourWeekMBA | Nasdaq | Value Investors Club | Seeking Alpha | CNBC
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