Amazon beats estimates and flies in the stock market. Apple, revenues at 102 billion
Amazon reported turnover up by 13% to 180.2 billionApple, profits almost doubled but sales of iPhones below expectations
Apple, fresh off the $4,000 market cap milestone, and Amazon released accounts that beat expectations between July and September: Amazon, on the back of double-digit increases in sales and profits, saw its stock soar 10 per cent in the after-market. Apple also predicted a strong year-end season and the stock took 4 per cent. The two giants rounded out the financial statements of America's technology leaders, with the exception of Nvidia, which is due out in November.
The ecommerce giant
Amazon for the third quarter reported sales up 13% to $180.2 billion against expectations of $177.8 billion, driven by growth in cloud services. Profits rose 39% to $21.2 billion, or earnings per share of $1.95, which in turn exceeded forecasts of $1.58. The AWS cloud services division, in particular, brought in a dowry of $33 billion in sales, up 20%, the fastest pace since 2022 and above the expected $32.42. Advertising revenues were $17.7 billion against estimates of $17.34 billion. CEO Andy Jassy cited artificial intelligence as a "driver of improvements in every corner of the business". The company anticipated revenues of $206 billion to $213 billion in the fourth quarter.
The smartphone giant
Apple, in its fiscal fourth quarter, reported revenue up 8% to $102.47 billion, profits almost doubled to $27.46 billion, and earnings per share of $1.85. Analysts had forecast $102.24 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.77. The iPhone raked in $49.03 billion (+6%), below the expected $50.19. However, CEO Tim Cook bet on group revenue growth of 'between 10% and 12%' in the October-December period, led by the new iPhone 17.
Divergent trend
The quarterly accounts and stocks of all the Big Tech companies remained under scrutiny, amidst the growth of artificial intelligence and optimism and fears of speculative bubbles. A nervousness that was clear from the divergent performance of the protagonists, based on investors' evaluations of the performance related to the bets on Ia. Meta gave up more than 11%, due to sharply rising expenses and an extraordinary 16 billion tax maxi-tax that weighed on profits. Not being a cloud service provider like other big rivals, from Amazon to Alphabet and Microsoft, its performance appears more at risk. Microsoft in turn lost ground, but a more contained 3%, on record investments and above expectations. Alphabet, on the other hand, gained more than 3%, thanks to a growth considered convincing in turnover. At the end of the day, the streaming leader Netflix announced a ten-to-one stock split.
