Microsoft is faring better than its more celebrated peers as losses pile up for technology stocks.
The software giant’s enterprise-orientated business is being rewarded by investors in search of stability while fears about slowing revenue growth have weighed on consumer-focused companies such as Apple and Amazon.com.
The Redmond, Washington-based company’s shares have fallen just 11% since the start of October — shaving its gain this year to 19% — while Amazon and Apple have each tumbled more than 20%.
“Microsoft is being viewed by many investors as a place to park your assets while we go through this white-knuckle period,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said. “The high-flier consumer names are getting taken to the woodshed.”
Excluded from the Faang group, Microsoft has outperformed those stocks since the start of October as investors bet that spending from businesses for cloud services and software will remain strong.
After years of derision for missing opportunities in markets such as digital advertising and social media, Microsoft now finds itself more insulated from the regulatory and data privacy scrutiny aimed at Facebook and Google.
Enterprise software
The majority of Microsoft’s revenue comes from products it sells to businesses, and increasingly that comes in the form of subscription-based cloud services or corporate software delivered through multiyear deals. Both are less subject to volatility. Spending on enterprise software is expected rise 8.3% in 2019, the fastest-growing segment in IT, according to projections from Gartner.
Investors are also bullish on the company’s commercial cloud segment, which expanded 56% to more than US$23-billion in the year ended 30 June. The company’s Office 365 programs lead in the market for cloud-based productivity tools, while Azure services for storing data and running apps in the cloud have a solid grip on the number two position behind Amazon Web Services. — Reported by Jeran Wittenstein and Dina Bass, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP
