Microsoft (MSFT) late Wednesday crushed Wall Street’s targets for its fiscal third quarter. Microsoft stock surged in extended trading.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant earned $3.46 a share on sales of $70.07 billion in the quarter ended March 31. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of $3.22 a share on sales of $68.44 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Microsoft earnings rose 18% while sales increased 13%.

↑ X NOW PLAYING Three Types Of Stock Market Corrections And How To Handle Them In after-hours trading on the stock market today, MSFT stock jumped more than 6% to 419.79. During the regular session Wednesday, MSFT stock rose 0.3% to close at 395.26.

Strong sales of cloud computing and artificial intelligence services drove Microsoft’s fiscal Q3 beat, the company said.

“Cloud and AI are the essential inputs for every business to expand output, reduce costs, and accelerate growth,” Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in a news release. “From AI infra and platforms to apps, we are innovating across the stack to deliver for our customers.”

Microsoft Cloud revenue rose 20% year over year to $42.4 billion in the March quarter.

Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business saw revenue increase 21% to $26.8 billion in fiscal Q3. Its Productivity and Business Processes unit posted a gain of 10% to $29.9 billion. And its More Personal Computing unit delivered a 6% increase with sales of $13.4 billion.

Azure cloud platform revenue grew 35% in constant currency in the March quarter. Analysts had expected 31.4% growth.

MSFT stock is in the IBD Long-Term Leaders Portfolio.

Follow Patrick Seitz on X, formerly Twitter, at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.

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