r/stocks
微软以历史低市盈率交易并非稳赚不赔的信号，多头似乎忽略了一些重要背景
作者认为微软低市盈率并非捡漏，因巨额AI资本开支导致自由现金流利润率下降，市场对其未来回报存疑。
- 管理层关于代理计算的论点使微软能够在企业各层捕获价值。
- AI 增长指标强劲：AI ARR 达 370 亿美元（同比增长 123%），Copilot 付费席位同比激增 250% 至 2500 万。
- 拥有无与伦比的全栈优势，没有竞争对手能提供企业 AI 代理的完整套件。
- 由于单季度高达 319 亿美元的资本支出，自由现金流利润率严重压缩（从历史的 30-35% 降至 19%）。
- 市场给予股票折价（市盈率 21 倍），因为在重新估值前要求证明巨额资本支出能带来回报。
- “全栈”AI 论点在纸面上已被消化，但现金消耗的现实正在压制估值倍数。
管理层的核心论点（也是多头们大力追捧的）是，向代理式计算的转变是不可避免的，而微软或许是在这一转型过程中最具备在每一层捕获价值能力的企业。
其逻辑如下：
- 代理正在成为主导的企业级工作负载
- 每家公司最终都需要基础设施来运行它们，（以及用于支撑它们的数据、部署它们的应用程序，还有控制它们的治理机制。）
- 微软拥有这四个层面的所有能力（Azure 提供基础设施，Fabric 和 Foundry 负责数据与模型编排，M365 和 GitHub 提供应用程序，Agent 365 则负责治理。）
- 没有任何竞争对手具备如此完整的全栈布局。
当然，这个论点在纸面上非常诱人。管理层不断引用 370 亿美元的人工智能年经常性收入（ARR）数字，该数字同比增长了 123%，同时指出微软 Copilot 付费用户数同比飙升 250%，达到 2500 万人。
这些数据确实亮眼。如果你相信管理层的说法，那么微软将不可避免地成为代理型企业操作系统，就像它在互联网泡沫时代所扮演的角色一样。
但问题是，市场并没有完全买账，这一点值得深究。股价已跌至 370 美元（几乎与 2021 年 11 月的水平相当），其市盈率 21 倍也接近公司历史低位。
如果管理层的论点如此坚不可摧，为何股价仍被如此折价？
我的两点看法如下：
第一（也是最主要的一点）是自由现金流（FCF）的问题，我认为这是最响亮的担忧。本季度，微软在 829 亿美元营收的基础上产生了 158 亿美元的自由现金流，自由现金流利润率仅为 19%。而历史上，微软的这一比率通常在 30% 至 35% 之间。当前利润率下滑，主要是因为本季度资本支出（CapEx）高达 319 亿美元，市场被要求相信这笔巨额季度开支终将带来回报。在自由现金流没有显著且持续回升之前，我坚信估值倍数将持续受压，因为不可能永远仅靠 ARR 增长来给公司定价。投资者想要看到的是真金白银的现金流入。
更令人担忧的是，谷歌和亚马逊等超大规模云服务商并未停滞不前。两者都在以相近的资本支出水平进行投入，也都拥有可信的人工智能基础设施故事。尤其是谷歌，在模型质量方面凭借 Gemini 拥有强劲论据。微软的叙事暗示企业级人工智能工作负载将集中于单一超大规模云平台。然而，现实情况更可能是企业采用多云人工智能策略，届时微软只能拿下三分之一的机会，而非一半。这将带来截然不同的估值结果。
第二，我认为管理层在披露部分关键指标时显得异常模糊。他们反复提及 2000 万 Copilot 用户席位，但我希望看到更细致的数据，比如每席位收入，以及是否已有消费型收入在此基础上实现增长。一些人担心，用户数量的增长是真实的，但变现深度远不如他们所宣称的那么深。换句话说，企业购买了 Copilot，但使用强度不足以驱动足以支撑高增长估值的消费收入。管理层对此避而不谈，这令人怀疑，因为这正是他们整个叙事的核心所在。
第三是毛利率持续下滑。我认为市场正将其视为结构性恶化，必须加以重视。
第四，微软与 OpenAI 在合同、结构和竞争关系上存在一种极为复杂的纠葛。这很危险，因为它给微软的人工智能年经常性收入（ARR）故事带来了重大依赖风险。我设想有很多因素可能导致 OpenAI 改变其发展轨迹——可能是竞争受挫、商业协议重组，或是模型质量相对于 Anthropic 或谷歌出现退步。
最后，我们必须记住，企业软件的采购周期很长。如果经济形势转弱，大额 Copilot 订阅这类可延后支出，恰恰是最容易被推迟的。因此，市场可能也在定价某种可能性：即第三季度的用户增长数字只是提前兑现，并非可持续的常态。
我并非说我会做空微软，甚至现在也不支持买入。我的意思是，市场可能并非毫无道理，那些认为这只是“市场太蠢”的人，可能并未充分考虑这只股票背后的全部因素。
总之，这只股票仍在我的关注列表中。目前我既未做多也未做空。我正在观察大约二十个左右的关键里程碑进展，之后再判断管理层的论点是否真的在逐步兑现。
Large caps should be trading around 2032 levels.
They have all just given each other the same money back and forth thus padding the books.
Microsoft good entry point is around $200-$275.
So NO, now is not a good time to get in..
🤷♀️
Ok grandpa
As someone who’s been working in the IT field for 20 years, the hold that Microsoft has on enterprise infrastructure is deserved. There is no direct competitor to the M365 ecosystem which is a form of infrastructure in itself, especially identity and access control.
AI performing professional work needs structured boundaries within which to work, and it needs to coexist with humans at least for the foreseeable future. Microsoft has the ecosystem to make this work and enterprises are already fully onboarded. Azure is actually the commodity here because its a replica of AWS and its always played catch up. Yet it was able to grind 30%+ of the market even though AWS invented cloud and had a decade head-start.
Microsoft isn’t in the AI model race, they’re in the enterprise adoption race, they’re playing a different game and yes its costing them market shares early on. In hindsight they should have built a better product for early adopters and developers because the OpenAI advantage didn’t materialize.
But it doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft is a very viable business even without AI revenue, and it doesn’t change the fact that once they start deploying in enterprise environments they’re going to access a massive part of the market just because they’re already used as the core business IT ecosystem.
Heck, they could simply use other people’s models integrated within their platform and still come up ahead. But they won’t need to do that for long. Let others build the best frontier models then just copy them for 1/10 of the price.
Even with that wall of text you skipped some very important points - for example: there’s no profit in running AI on servers so this is all just a race to the bottom. And when they get there they’ll find there is no lock-in on model selection. Open source models are improving and thanks to free investment by the Chinese are not going to remain behind the big models forever. Plus for most uses, local models will do just fine, making all of this vapor. What profitable product are they spending all this money on?
This is like when all the movie companies raced to create their own streaming platforms just to find out that there’s no profit until you charge cable prices for a cable experience (what we already had). The winner of the streaming wars wasn’t MGM or Fox, it was Sony (who didn’t play).
Haha cant wait for all the hater comments
I don’t know man Microsoft has been consistently taking Ls as a company
Capex could be deleted at any point. Counting it as an ongoing cost is asinine.
Too long just tell me if should I buy call or put
The amount of people using AI to generate their posts is just getting old. This sucks.
What about this post sounds like AI to you?
There's a lot of signs of AI (the em dash, "it's not X, it's Y", bold titles with emojis, etc), but I don't see them personally. What do you see?
I promise you I havent
Thanks for making this post, now I am more confident the stock will go up
MSFT not so much big tech is facing pressure from european derisking US tech. They will probably lose a lot of revenue in the future.
There have been numerous such cases over years does not mean anything. 100million dollor fine for them is like mosquito bite.
Did you use Copilot for this so-called analysis?