Like the rest of its tech brethren, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) had a difficult 2022, as its shares fell more than 25% on worries over rising interest rates, surging inflation and a slowing global economy.
While 2023 is not expected to be quite as bad as 2022, sentiments remain strong about the global economy slowing further and potential tip into a recession. However, there are some views on Wall Street that the software giant could still see business improving this year.
Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss, who has an overweight rating on Microsoft (MSFT), noted the company is likely to benefit from continued IT spending and is thought of higher than where it's positioned in the investment firm's survey of chief information officers.
The survey, which expects software spending to grow 3.3% in 2023, pointed out that Microsoft (MSFT) is "better positioned than most" in a downturn, given that it is still the leader in expected IT budget gains due to the shift to the cloud. Additionally, the survey added that Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to have a net of 40% of expected share gains for IT wallet spending, well ahead of Amazon (AMZN), which is expected to capture 24% of gains.
Weiss said that Microsoft (MSFT) expanded its lead over Amazon (AMZN), with about 48% of the CIOs surveyed now expecting Microsoft "to see the largest incremental IT budget share gains over the next three years," compared to 15% for Amazon.
In addition, Microsoft (MSFT) has continued to make gains in other areas such as security, cloud computing, data warehousing, business intelligence and analytics, digital transformation and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The company may make further advances in AI if it integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT into its products, including Bing and Office, something the company has reportedly discussed.
Lastly, Microsoft (MSFT) looks poised to benefit as customers slim down the number of vendors in areas such as data management and automation, according to the CIO survey.
"With CIOs increasingly looking to consolidate vendors in a slowing spending environment, we see Microsoft as best positioned to benefit from consolidation given its breadth of functions and alignment to CIO priority list and defensive IT projects," Weiss added.
Despite the expected benefits this year, not everything is coming up roses for Microsoft (MSFT).
Firstly, it will have to deal with a weaker IT spending environment, though that is something that every company in the space will likely have to face.
Additionally, there is the potential that the expectations seen in the survey for Microsoft (MSFT) do not come to fruition, including potential downgrades for Microsoft 365, previously known as Office 365, due to its pricing.
According to the survey, 8% of CIOs said they would downgrade subscription tiers in the next year, while 5% said they would switch to lower-priced versions of Microsoft 365, with fewer options, which would impact Microsoft's (MSFT) revenue.
Nonetheless, the expectation is that Microsoft (MSFT) will wind up better than its peers, a thesis that has not yet shown up in its stock, as it trades at roughly 19 times estimated 2024 earnings, compared to roughly 30 times for peers.
"While there are definitely some indicators Microsoft is not immune from the weaker IT spending environment, the preponderance of evidence in our survey work suggests favorable near-term consolidation trends and further improvement in the longer-term positioning against core secular growth initiatives," Weiss wrote.
On Thursday, Citi listed Microsoft (MSFT) among its favorite enterprise application software stocks for 2023.
