Quarterly figures: Important milestone for Microsoft

For the first time, more than half of the revenue comes from the cloud business. Also: Alphabet feels the weak advertising market and Twitter deal is expected on Friday.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

Microsofts business is shifting: For the first time in the company’s history, the US group has made more than half of its revenues in the cloud business. Microsoft was able to record over 25.7 billion US dollars there. The “Handelsblatt” rated this as an “important stage victory” for CEO Satya Nadella.

The company’s total revenue was $50.12 billion, beating analysts’ expectations. Earnings of $2.35 per share were also better than analysts had expected. However, the forecast for the coming quarter was rather mediocre with growth of two percent. The shares therefore lost around seven percent in extended trading on Tuesday. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, Wall Street Journal und CNBC]

on Founder scene: At the Berlin e-commerce logistics company Hive are new employees faced with a choice: more salary or shares in the company? Many of the 300 employees would have opted for the latter option, says the founder Franz Purucker. “Most have worked in other startups before and know that ESOPs can really be financially worthwhile.” Hive shows just how much in an internal presentation – including sample calculations. Our editor Daniel Hüfner has examined the paper for you. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

Die Google-Mutter Alphabet suffers from weak advertising spending. Especially the video platform Youtube disappointed. The group was able to increase its quarterly sales compared to the previous year from just over 65 billion US dollars to just over 69 billion dollars, but earnings fell from 1.40 dollars per share to 1.06 dollars. Analysts had expected both higher earnings and higher earnings per share. The paper of the US tech group then fell by around six percent in after-hours trading. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, CNBC und Wall Street Journal]

TeslaCEO Elon Musk wants to take over the short message service Twitter finalize. According to an insider, the deal should be finalized by Friday. Musk is said to have announced this in a video conference with bankers. The billionaire said in April he wanted to acquire Twitter for $54.20 a share. But a few months later he tried to cancel the $44 billion deal and accused Twitter of lying about the number of bogus accounts on the platform. Both parties then took legal action against each other. [Mehr bei Reuters]

Bosch continues to expand its production of electric motors in the USA. The auto supplier from Gerlingen will invest more than 260 million US dollars in its largest US location in Charleston, South Carolina. Around 350 new jobs are also to be created by 2025 after the demand for electric motors has increased. Bosch’s main customer in the USA is the US electric car manufacturer Rivian. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

SAP earns – similar to Microsoft – good money with its cloud services and exceeded the expectations of analysts with its numbers. In the third quarter, the cloud services business grew by 38 percent to 3.29 billion euros, up 25 percent at constant currency. Overall, revenues climbed 15 percent to 7.84 billion euros, currency-adjusted by five percent. The company from Walldorf, on the other hand, is still struggling with the withdrawal from Russia. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

Intel brings its self-driving vehicle division, Mobileye, actually to the stock market. According to Reuters, a share will cost $21 and the IPO will bring the company $861 million. Overall, Mobileye is valued at $16.7 billion. This is well below the $50 billion that Intel was hoping for last year. Mobileye is one of the few big companies planning an IPO this year amid the stock market sell-off. The grocery delivery company Instacart will probably postpone its IPO due to the weak market. [Mehr bei Reuters und Bloomberg]

Spotify has delivered mixed quarterly figures. Ad revenue faltered, but the Swedish music-streaming service beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and user numbers. The number of paying subscribers increased by 13 percent to 195 million. A total of 456 million people use the music service. Group revenues climbed 21 percent to three billion euros. But the operating loss of 228 million euros was significantly higher than expected by analysts. The latter then also frightened investors, and the share lost seven percent in after-hours trading. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: The startup Snake wants to solve newspapers’ paywall problem with interactive ads. The company’s tool can break unloved paywalls while newspapers still make money. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Wednesday!

Your Gründerszene editors