Microsoft: Key Financial Ratios and Metrics

BETTING BIG ON THE CLOUD

Microsoft is betting big on its cloud revenues but it faces increased competition from Amazon, Google, Sales Force, IBM, Oracle among others. If we combine Microsoft's Server Products & Cloud Services  segment and Office Products & Cloud Services  segment into a new segment called Cloud and Related Services, it accounts for 51.17% of the revenues for the year ended in June 2019. The Cloud related services segment grew at a CAGR of 14.47% in the last three years. Windows is the second largest contributor to Microsoft's revenues after cloud, accounting for 16.21% of the total revenues for the year ended in June 2019.


The 3-year segment CAGRs are shown in the figure below. Based on these figures, it is assumed that Microsoft is going to transform from a growth company to a mature company in the next five to ten years. (unless they pull off another high growth segment!)


Having said that, it is important to note that Microsoft invests heavily in research and development, acquisitions and patents. For the year ended on June 30, 2019 Microsoft invested 13.41% - close to
$ 17 billions of its revenues in research and development.

HIGH PROFIT MARGINS

Microsoft enjoys high margins on its products and services. Between June 2015 and June 2019 Microsoft's operating margin increased from 19.21% to 34.12%. The Net Profit Margin increased from 13.03% to 31.18% during the same period.


When compared to 'FAANG' companies Microsoft has higher higher net profit margins.


PROFITABILITY RATIOS

Return on Invested Capital has been calculated as EBIT*(1-t)/(Total Assets - Cash and Short Te In)

Microsoft's return on invested capital has increased from 15.15% in June 2015 to 23.68% in June 2019.


Microsoft's EPS and DPS grew at a CAGR of 33.85% and 10.44% respectively in the past four years.


SOLVENCY and LIQUIDITY RATIOS

Microsoft has $134. 231 billions in cash and short term investments. Therefore, there are no solvency or liquidity problems.

As of Dec 31, 2019 Microsoft has $ 78.36 billions of debt outstanding on its balance sheet. The proportion of total debt (both short term and long term) out of invested capital (Total Assets -  Cash)
is shown in the chart below.



UNEARNED REVENUES

As of 30 June 2019, Microsoft has unearned revenues of $ 123.67 billions which is 98.27% of its total revenues. Microsoft earns majority of its revenues through client subscriptions and therefore activity ratios are not suitable. Instead, Microsoft's unearned revenues by segment and financial year have been shown in the figure below.


So the conclusion is that Microsoft is moving from growth stage to mature stage of its life cycle with high profit margins and piles of cash.

Data Source: Reuters Finance, Microsoft Investors Centre

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