U.S. giants post strong earnings
A day after their chief executives were grilled by a congressional anti-trust committee, four of the biggest technology companies in the United States posted solid quarterly earnings on Thursday, showing their resilience despite challenges posed by the COVID -19 pandemic.
Amazon.com Inc. led the way, reporting profit that far exceeded analysts’ estimates.
Second-quarter revenue rose 40 per cent from a year earlier to US$88.9 billion.
Revenue in the current quarter will range from US$87 billion to US$93 billion with operating income of US$2 billion to US$5 billion, the Seattle-based company said Thursday. Analysts estimated an operating profit of US$3.04 billion on sales of US$86.5 billion.
Second-quarter sales for Facebook Inc. also topped analysts’ highest estimates, rebounding from a pandemic-fuelled disruption to digital advertising earlier in the year.
Revenue jumped 11 per cent to US$18.7 billion, compared with the US$17.3 billion average analyst projection.
Apple Inc. reported quarterly revenue that also crushed forecasts after locked down consumers snapped up new iphones, ipads and Mac computers. Fiscal third-quarter revenue came in at US$59.7 billion, a record for the June period, Apple said. That was up 11 per cent from a year earlier and smashed analysts’ estimates of US$52.3 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Alphabet Inc.’s revenue fell for the first time. Ad sales were US$29.9 billion in Q2, down 8.1 per cent from the same period last year. That’s the lowest they’ve been since the Q3 of 2018. Still, overall revenue, which slipped two per cent, was slightly higher than analysts had expected.