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Microsoft — Q3 FY26 Earnings Explained simply: where the money came from, and where it went

Q3 FY26 · Quarter ended 2026-03-31
Reported 2026-04-29

Microsoft's revenue rose 18% to $82.9B as Azure grew 40% — and it poured $30.9B into new data centers in a single quarter to keep up with AI demand.

Revenue growth+18%EPS (GAAP)$4.27Azure growth+40%Microsoft Cloud$54.5B

Follow the money, left → right. Hover or tap any block or band to trace where that money comes from and where it goes. Tap a block to pin it and read what it means below. Tap the background to reset.

Revenue

In plain English

This quarter

Follow $100 of revenue

Charts in billions are hard to feel. Here is the same quarter, shrunk down: for every $100 Microsoft took in, this is where it went.

Productivity and Business Processes
$42.24
Intelligent Cloud
$41.84
More Personal Computing
$15.92
Cost of revenue
−$32.37
R&D
−$10.76
Sales & marketing
−$8.22
G&A
−$2.33
Other income
$1.14
Tax
−$9.12
Kept as profit
$38.34

Three things to take away

If you only remember three numbers from this quarter, make it these.

+40%

Azure is still accelerating

Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 40%, Intelligent Cloud rose 30% to $34.7B, and Microsoft Cloud overall reached $54.5B — two-thirds of all revenue.

$30.9B

The data-center bill is staggering

Microsoft spent $30.9B on property and equipment in one quarter — nearly double a year ago — yet still generated $46.7B of operating cash flow and $15.8B of free cash flow.

$627B

Customers have pre-committed $627B

Commercial remaining performance obligation — work customers have signed for but not yet paid — jumped 99% to $627B, a backlog that underwrites future cloud revenue.

One-time items to know about

Things that make this quarter look different from a normal one — so you don't mistake them for the trend.

  • Losses from Microsoft's investment in OpenAI trimmed just $14M from net income this quarter — a rounding error next to the $583M drag in the same quarter a year ago.

Other quarters

The same chart, for every quarter we've covered.