Although financial companies traditionally signal the start of the US earnings season, next week is when the tech heavyweights begin reporting starting with Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) on 23 January. Expect AI (artificial intelligence) to continue to dominate the commentary with all eyes on Copilot and Azure growth.

Microsoft has emerged as the top AI software story over the past year, with real-world AI applications being quickly embedded into the firm’s product suite through Copilot, delivered over its cloud computing arm Azure, which has been closing the gap on cloud leader Amazon Web Services.

Microsoft shares closed the first calendar quarter of 2023 with a gain of 20%, going on to register a 57% increase over the full year, and another rampant start to this year would go down very well with investors. 

In fact, last Friday, Microsoft overtook Apple (AAPL:NASDAQ) as the world's most valuable company in terms of market cap.

Analysts are forecasting earnings per share of $2.75 for the final quarter of 2023 against $2.32 the previous year, and revenue of $52.9 billion, while investors can expect plenty of optimism for the year ahead that could keep the shares moving higher.

The earnings consensus suggests growth is set to accelerate as the months tick by, as customer use cases and Microsoft income ramp up. 

US UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

QUARTERLY RESULTS

19 January: Schlumberger, Travelers, State Street, Fifth Third, Huntington Bancshares, Regions Financial, Comerica

22 January: Brown & Brown, Equity Lifestyle, United Airlines, Zions, Crane NXT, Bank of Hawaii

23 January: Microsoft, J&J, Procter&Gamble, Netflix, Verizon, Texas Instruments, General Electric, Logitech, Premier Financial

24 January: Tesla, IBM, ServiceNow, AT&T

25 January: Visa, Intel, T-Mobile US, Comcast, Union Pacific, Starbucks, Marsh McLennan, Dow, Southwest Airlines, United States Steel, American Airlines

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