No end in sight for tech share gains

new york — A trio of US tech titans announced earnings that crushed expectations after markets closed on Thursday, sending their shares soaring in the afterhours session.

Amazon.com showed it can do it all, with top and bottom line beats that included roughly $1.3 billion in quarterly revenue from Whole Foods Market and profit growth of more than 40 per cent in its cloudcomputing division. It’s little wonder why executives of everything from property developers to amusement park operators have name-dropped the e-commerce giant in quarterly conference calls.

Demand for cloud services also helped propel Microsoft’s sales higher, contributing to better-thananticipated earnings. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw ad volumes surge in the third quarter while its mysterious “Other Bets” — the non-Internet project division — drew praise from chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

Amazon

Amazon.com showed investors it can run grocery stores, churn out gadgets, expand its cloud-computing business and invest in new markets, all while selling more products online and managing expenses.

The company reported thirdquarter sales and profit that topped analysts’ estimates. The results reassured investors that the company can integrate its biggest-ever acquisition — Whole Foods Market — without disrupting its dominating e-commerce performance. Shares rose as much as 8.5 per cent in extended trading.

The stock closed at $972.43 in New York and has gained 30 per cent this year.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s push into the cloud forged ahead last quarter, with demand for online versions of Office productivity software and the Azure web-services business bolstering sales and earnings. Profit in the period that ended September 30 exceeded analysts’ estimates and sales rose 12 per cent to $24.5 billion amid buoyant demand for Azure cloud services, used to store and run customers’ applications in Microsoft’s data centres.

CEO Satya Nadella has turned Microsoft into a cloud-computing powerhouse, recently reshuffling the sales force and investing in new products and services.

Alphabet

Alphabet beat projections for thirdquarter sales and earnings after a surge in Google ad volume helped the web-search giant shrug off concerns about regulatory scrutiny and an expensive foray into hardware.

Sales for the quarter rose to $22.27 billion and profit was $9.57 a share, the company said. Analysts on average estimated sales of $22 billion on earnings of $8.34 a share. Executives lauded “tremendous results” in mobile search ads. Yet the company cautioned investors the biggest costs that come with those ads — fees paid to distribution partners — will continue to rise, along with expenses from Google’s foray into devices and holiday-season marketing.

“We had a terrific quarter, with revenues up 24 per cent year-onyear, reflecting strength across Google and Other Bets,” Porat said. It’s the first time in an earnings release that the CFO praised Alphabet’s non-Google units, in selfdriving cars and other experimental fields, which sharply curbed their costs during the quarter.

Alphabet shares rose three per cent in after-hours trading. That put the stock on course for a record in Thursday trading. It’s up 25 per cent so far this year. — Agencies