Lockdown helps Apple, Amazon

With most of the nation on lockdown, technology companies like Amazon and Apple benefited as consumers found other ways to spend their money.

Apple said Thursday that its revenue grew by nearly 1 percent in the first three months of the year as the company was able to make up for sales declines in China, which was locked down for much of the quarter because of the novel coronavirus.

The company’s income was bolstered by surging sales of its internet services and the Apple Watch and AirPods.

Apple typically forecasts its sales for the next quarter but declined to do so Thursday. Analysts expect the current quarter to be much uglier because of virus-related shutdowns around the world.

Apple showed confidence in its financial footing though by announcing another $50 billion in stock buybacks.

The spread of the coronavirus played right into the hands of Amazon’s core businesses, as consumers shopped more online and companies spent more on cloud computing.

Those two pillars of Amazon’s business drove sales to the highest on record outside of the holiday shopping season, the company said Thursday.

Amazon reported that it had $75.5 billion in sales in the latest quarter, up 26 percent from a year earlier, surpassing analyst expectations. Profit fell about 29 percent, to $2.5 billion, because it cost more to meet the increased customer demand.

Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, signaled that profit may continue to fall in the near future.

The company would typically expect to make around $4 billion in operating profit in the next quarter, but “we expect to spend the entirety of that $4 billion, and perhaps a bit more, on COVID-related expenses getting products to customers and keeping employees safe,” he said in a statement.