$3.51 EPS, $70.46B revenue expected for Microsoft's fiscal Q3 ahead of April 29 report

Microsoft reports fiscal third-quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday, April 29, with analysts expecting about $81.4 billion in revenue and $4.06 in earnings per share. (microsoft.com) (finance.yahoo.com) The company said on April 8 that Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood will host the earnings webcast at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time. (news.microsoft.com) The biggest operating number heading into the report is Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-computing business, which the company previously guided to 37% to 38% growth in constant currency for the March quarter. Yahoo Finance’s consensus for the quarter is $81.4 billion in sales, up 16.18% from $70.07 billion a year earlier, and $4.06 in earnings per share versus $3.46 a year earlier. (cnbc.com) (finance.yahoo.com) Investors are also watching whether Microsoft can turn heavy artificial-intelligence spending into profit growth fast enough to satisfy Wall Street. In the January quarter, Microsoft spent $37.5 billion on capital expenditures as it built more data-center and graphics-processing capacity for Azure and its own AI products. (geekwire.com) (finance.yahoo.com) That spending overshadowed otherwise strong January results. Microsoft posted $81.3 billion in revenue, $38.3 billion in operating income and $4.14 in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share for fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025. (microsoft.com) (news.microsoft.com) GeekWire reported Microsoft shares fell 10% the day after that report, erasing $357 billion in market value, even though Azure grew 39% in the quarter. The stock was still down 22% from its 52-week high heading into this week’s release. (geekwire.com) Another pressure point is Copilot, Microsoft’s family of generative-artificial-intelligence assistants sold across Microsoft 365, GitHub and other products. GeekWire reported that Microsoft 365 Copilot had reached 3.3% of Microsoft 365’s commercial base by the last earnings report, leaving investors looking for clearer signs of paid adoption. (geekwire.com) The OpenAI relationship also changed two days before earnings. Microsoft and OpenAI said on April 27 that Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s primary cloud provider, but OpenAI can now serve products across other cloud providers and Microsoft’s license to OpenAI intellectual property will no longer be exclusive. (blogs.microsoft.com) (openai.com) Those changes do not alter Wednesday’s numbers, but they add a fresh question for Nadella and Hood as investors ask how much of Microsoft’s artificial-intelligence growth depends on Azure demand, Copilot pricing and the reshaped OpenAI partnership. (blogs.microsoft.com) (geekwire.com)