Microsoft Halts New Sales in Russia amid Ukraine Crisis; Shares Fall

Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), said that the technology giant has stopped new sales of its products and services in Russia, following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The company is working with the governments of the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union to comply with the sanctions against Russia, Smith said in a blog post.

“We continue to work proactively to help cybersecurity officials in Ukraine defend against Russian attacks, including most recently a cyberattack against a major Ukrainian broadcaster,” he added.

Nuance Acquisition

Meanwhile, Microsoft has completed the acquisition of Massachusetts-based software firm Nuance Communications.

The Executive Vice-President of Cloud + AI Group at Microsoft, Scott Guthrie, said, “This powerful combination will help providers offer more affordable, effective and accessible healthcare, and help organizations in every industry create more personalized and meaningful customer experiences.”

Mark Benjamin, the CEO of Nuance, said, “Combining the power of Nuance’s deep vertical expertise and proven business outcomes across healthcare, financial services, retail, telecommunications and other industries with Microsoft’s global cloud ecosystems will enable us to accelerate our innovation and deploy our solutions more quickly, more seamlessly and at greater scale to solve our customers’ most pressing challenges.”

Benjamin, who will report to Guthrie, will continue as the CEO of Nuance.

About Microsoft

Headquartered in Washington, Microsoft offers computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its most-known products include Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Surface, Xbox video game consoles, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers.

MSFT stock closed 2.1% down on Friday. It lost another 0.1% in after-hours trading to end the day at $289.48.

Wall Street’s Take

Last week, Blair Abernethy from Rosenblatt Securities maintained a Buy rating on the stock but did not provide a price target.

Additionally, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Brad Reback reiterated a Buy rating on Microsoft with a $380 price target (31.1% upside potential).

Reback said, “MSFT is one of the best-positioned names within the software sector for sustainable, durable, profitable growth in the foreseeable future.”

Overall, the stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 28 unanimous Buys. The average MSFT price target of $376.28 implies 29.8% upside potential. Shares have gained 28.5% over the past year.

Website Traffic

TipRanks’ Website Traffic Tool, which uses data from SEMrush Holdings (NYSE: SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, offers insight into Microsoft’s performance.

According to the tool, compared to the previous year, Microsoft’s website traffic registered a 12.5% decline in global visits year-to-date.

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