Recently, Microsoft (MSFT) reached its highest stock price in a year , maintaining a steady upward trend. While other stocks in the Magnificent Seven (M7) group have seen negative returns, Microsoft has quietly but consistently climbed higher. Since the beginning of the year, MSFT has increased 13.6%, making it the second-best performing Big Tech stock after Meta (META). Key Driver of MSFT's Stock Growth – Azure's Dominance in the Cloud Market Microsoft's stock surge is not merely due to market sentiment but rather the company's strengthened position in the cloud industry . Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, has been rapidly increasing its market share and closing the gap with AWS , its biggest competitor. In Q1 2025 , the global cloud market share stood at: Amazon AWS: 32% (still leading) Microsoft Azure: 23% (expanding rapidly) Google Cloud (GCP): 12% (growing but trailing) Azure's cloud revenue grew 33% year-over-year , regaining a 30% growth rat...