Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Stock Forecasts

Summary

Which of the market-dominant and so-called “Magnificent 7” stocks might be the best investments? During the first phase of unbridled AI enthusiasm, all of the Mag 7 were loved as their opportunity appeared to be almost unlimited. The market is now more skeptical toward perceived AI winners, which has led to a natural tendency to rank the group on their go-forward prospects. We see Amazon moving up in the ranks, while Nvidia continues to command the top spot. All the Mag 7 names have something in common. They are all dominant in at least one core competency; and they have leveraged the immense cash flows thrown off by their core competencies to invest in and develop the generative AI opportunity. “Ranking” the Mag 7 on their intermediate-term prospects, therefore, involves assessing each company’s ability to defend and nurture its core business while using that strength to gain share within the AI ecosystem. For this week’s list, we analyze and rank the Mag 7 (from top to bottom) on their apparent intermediate-term prospects. We expect our rankings for the Mag 7 to be fluid, but do not foresee any movement in first or last place.* Nvidia (NVDA): We continue to put Nvidia at the top of the Mag 7 list. Unlike the other six names, Nvidia’s core competency is artificial intelligence. The need for realistic rendering in GPU-based gaming, Nvidia’s founding business, laid the groundwork for the applications acceleration and the massively parallel computing that are cornerstones of training large language models (LLMs) and enabling inference. We rank Nvidia number one based on the evidence in the company’s own growth numbers, which are stellar. In its recent fiscal 4Q25, revenue of $39 billion grew 78% annually. At its GTC event in March 2025, Nvidia forecast that data-center revenue would exceed $1 trillion annually in the next few years, and that the entire global industrial infrastructure represented a $50 trillion opportunity for AI renewal. Nvidia also provides much more than its industry leading GPUs, including its CUDA software library, and is “turbo-charging” agentic AI development with open-reasoning models, platforms, and partnerships. The best evidence of Nvidia’s momentum is the growth of the enterprise infrastructure companies using Nvidia solutions to support the mainstreaming of AI. Micron’s data-center revenue tripled year over year and now exceeds 50% of total company revenue. Micron increased the TAM for its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) opportunity to $35 billion as of March 2025, up from $20 billion approximately half a year ago. Among the leading U.S.-based GPU server providers, Dell Technologies posted $10 billion in AI sever revenue in FY25 and expects $15 billion in FY26. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise exited fiscal 1Q25 with $8.3 billion in cumulative AI systems and services orders. The leaders in data center interconnects (DCIs), Broadcom and Marvell, are both reporting explosive growth in these categories. * Meta Platforms (META): Meta Platforms in second place because it has been among the most successful in leveraging its core competency (social media) into a leadership role in building LLMs, including multi-modal models. Snap has a limited opportunity, and X is stunted by self-inflicted wounds and perceived Musk contagion. Only Asia-based companies such as ByteDance (TikTok) represent a real threat. We see some risk to the core business from seemingly endless EU and U.S. congressional opposition; and Meta’s social-media cornerstones (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) could be carved cleanly in three. We do not see that happening, however. Meta has successfully pivoted from the Zuckerberg’s expensive obsession with the metaverse to the more-practical and fast-developing AI opportunity. Unlike AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, Meta is successfully enabling and advancing leading LLMs even though it is not a major provider of hybrid cloud services. We see Meta first and foremost deploying AI internally to improve operating efficiency and personal targeting so as to optimize the company’s social media user base, which exceeds 3.3 billion. Facebook Reality Labs, which houses Meta’s Gen AI business, posted revenue of $2.1 billion in 2024, just 1% of total Meta revenue. Currently, this is mainly a hardware-based business (Quest VR headsets, Ray-Ban AR glasses), but we see long-term growth opportunity as Meta’s Llama LLMs go mainstream. Much as Apple capitalized on the vast iOS installed base and targeted the individual with iCloud, Meta could offer a personalized AI offering to its more-than three billion users.* Amazon.com (AMZN): In third place is Amazon. Amazon’s online retail operations and particularly its Prime business are without a global peer. The combined retail operating margin (Americas and International) for 4Q24 was 6.1%, by far the highest in our model going back to company’s inception. Prime’s media is now rivaling Netflix in content quality and volume. AWS is the leading CSP globally, and its rising margins and cash flows are funding the company’s Gen AI opportunity. Amazon was quick to replace the head of AWS in May 2024 when the board perceived that the company was lagging in Gen AI. AWS is at a $110 billion annual revenue run rate and margins are at or near record highs. Both internally and in partnership with Anthropic and others, AI has produced Bedrock Marketplace, where clients can choose from over 100 LLMs; Trainium and Trainium 2 accelerators; and Amazon Nova, an extensive family of foundational models. * Apple (AAPL): Fourth place goes to Apple. Apple’s core competency is global leadership in technology devices and services. Apple has been somewhat disappointing in its early efforts in AI. The company is even going outside its usual reliance on internal capabilities to enlist support from companies such as OpenAI. But we have long regarded Apple as a product perfector, not a product pioneer; early iteration mobile phones such as DynaTAC and StarTAC amazed, but they are long gone while iPhone grows in dominance. Investors are also concerned about Apple’s declining China sales. Yet in the most-recent fiscal 1Q25, Apple grew revenue in all other regions. The company’s massive iOS installed base exceeds 2.2 billion, providing fertile ground for continued growth in services.* Microsoft (MSFT): In the fifth spot is Microsoft. Microsoft has leveraged is core competency in enterprise software into Azure, the number two CSP behind AWS. Like all of the companies mentioned above that are not named Nvidia, Microsoft is challenged in getting sufficient supply of advanced Blackwell products to build and run its most-advanced models. Microsoft’s cloud business has never been as profitable as AWS, although that may partly be due to which assets are allocated to the cloud division. Microsoft has had a few missteps in rolling out its Gen AI models, and bot