Microsoft hits $1 trillion market cap for the first time on earnings

Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reacts during a panel session on day three of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 24, 2019.

Microsoft shares jumped as much as 5.1% on Thursday, pushing the company past $1 trillion in market value on a better-than-expected earnings report.

The stock needed to hit $130.51 to reach the trillion-dollar mark for the first time. It traded as high as $131.31, though it was bouncing around throughout the morning.

After the market closed on Wednesday, Microsoft reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $1.14 per share, excluding certain items, topping the $1.00 estimate of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Revenue climbed 14% to $30.6 billion, exceeding the average estimate of $29.84 billion.

Microsoft and Facebook kicked off tech earnings season, with both companies surpassing expectations. Facebook shares rose over 6% on Thursday. Amazon reports after the bell, followed by Alphabet and Apple early next week. Expectations are high for the tech sector, after the Nasdaq climbed to an intraday record on Wednesday.

Sales growth at Microsoft is being driven by the transition to the public cloud as more large businesses offload their servers and data storage to Azure infrastructure. Gross margin, or the percentage of revenue left after accounting for the costs of goods sold, was 66.7%, up from 65.4% a year earlier. Net income rose 19% to $8.8 billion.