Microsoft's quarterly dividend for this quarter has increased by 10% to $0.83 compared to the previous quarter, and the new share buyback plan approved by the board of directors has no expiration date and may be terminated at any time. Microsoft's stock price rose slightly after-hours.
$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ They are going to give shareholders a "red envelope".
On Monday, August 16th, after the U.S. market closed, Microsoft announced that the board of directors decided to declare a dividend of $0.83 per share for this quarter, an increase of $0.08 per share or 10% compared to the previous quarter. The new dividend will be paid to shareholders registered as of November 21, 2024 on December 12, 2024. The ex-dividend date is November 21, 2024.
In addition to increasing the dividend, Microsoft's board of directors has also approved a new share buyback plan, authorizing the company to repurchase up to $60 billion of its stock with no expiration date. Microsoft stated that the new share buyback plan has no expiration date and may be terminated at any time.
After announcing the increase in dividends and buyback plan, Microsoft's stock price maintained a slight upward trend in after-hours trading on Monday. It briefly experienced a "flash crash" but then rebounded strongly, initially dropping by over 5% in after-hours trading but later recovering and turning positive.
Prior to announcing the increase in dividends and the new buyback plan, as of the close on Monday, Microsoft's stock price had risen for six consecutive trading days and reached a new closing high since July 23rd. It completely erased all the declines since the release of the earnings report at the end of July.
The financial report for the fourth fiscal quarter ending on June 30th, announced after-hours on July 30th, showed that Microsoft's revenue grew 15% higher than expected for the quarter. The earnings per share (EPS) and operating profit also showed strong growth, exceeding Wall Street expectations by double digits. However, the revenue growth of the intelligent cloud segment slowed down more than analysts had expected, marking the first time in the past three quarters that the revenue growth was less than 20%. In the intelligent cloud business, the revenue of Azure and other cloud services in the second quarter grew by 29% compared to the same period last year, which is a deceleration from the 31% growth in the first quarter, and the growth rate fell below 30% for the first time since the third quarter of last year.
Afterwards, Wall Street Journal mentioned that the quarterly revenue growth of Microsoft Azure's cloud business fell short of expectations, while capital expenditure for the quarter surged by 77.6%, almost all of which was used for AI related expenses. Microsoft also stated that it will continue to increase spending, which happens to address the market's concerns - AI investment returns require more time.
Analysts commented that Wall Street does not have much patience; when they see a company investing billions of dollars, they expect to see a corresponding increase in revenue.
Editor/Lambor