Microsoft Posts Record Revenue, Azure Surpasses $100 Billion, Azure Growth Hits 43%

Microsoft (MSFT) closed fiscal year 2026 with record revenue of $331.8 billion, up 18% year over year, a total built on a $90.01 billion fourth quarter that itself grew 18%. The results cap two years in which Microsoft has leaned into AI infrastructure as its primary growth engine, and the numbers show that bet continuing to pay off at scale.

Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform, surpassed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time in fiscal 2026, up 41% for the full year, while quarterly growth accelerated to 43% in the fourth quarter from 40% in the prior quarter . Acceleration rather than the deceleration typical of a maturing cloud business suggests enterprise AI workloads are still ramping rather than plateauing, a dynamic that could keep Azure ahead of rivals for several more quarters.

Microsoft Cloud as a whole grew 27% to $59.3 billion in the quarter, and Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats, evidence that AI features are converting into paid enterprise adoption rather than staying a demo. The company also added 31 new data centers during the quarter, bringing its full-year total to 88, underscoring the physical scale behind the growth numbers.

That buildout carries a steep price tag: capital expenditures and finance leases reached $41 billion in the quarter, up 69% year over year. Investors could watch whether Azure's growth keeps outrunning that spending, and whether rivals in cloud infrastructure can narrow the gap now that Microsoft has cemented Azure as a $100 billion-plus business.

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