Microsoft Shares Plunge on Lackluster Azure Sales Forecast (3)

Microsoft Corp. shares had their biggest intraday drop since March 2020 after the company gave a lackluster forecast for sales growth in its Azure cloud-computing services business, a closely watched measure of corporate demand.

Revenue growth for Azure, which lets companies run and store software applications, will drop by five percentage points in the current period from the prior quarter, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said on a conference call Tuesday. Azure sales rose 42% in the fiscal first quarter, excluding the impact of foreign-currency exchange rates, implying a gain of 37% for the second quarter, which ends in December. ...