Amazon
What is certain is that between January and March Amazon benefited from a steady demand for online shopping and advertising and from a continuous growth of cloud computing activities. Sales of $127.4 billion, up 9%, fared better than expectations by $124.55 billion. Net income came in at $3.17 billion, reversing the $3.84 billion loss recorded a year earlier. In turn, at 31 cents a share, it beat expectations by 21 cents. AWS, the crucial cloud division, for its part reported a 16% increase in revenues to 21.35 billion, above the 21.22 billion expected, even if the step was less than the previous 20%. Amazon Web Services also remained the cornerstone of profitability, with operating income of $5.1 billion. Even if there is caution about the future: CFO Brian Olsavsky has raised an alarm at least for the immediate future, Amazon customers are adopting savings strategies, especially when it comes to the cloud.
Meta
Meta for its part has achieved the first increase in turnover for almost a year now and a better than expected outlook. It closed the first quarter of the year amidst encouraging surprises, living up to its promise of a year dedicated to efficiency and improving financial performance despite the troubled bet on the metaverse and the woes of digital advertising in a climate of economic uncertainty. Group revenues were $28.65 billion, up 3% and above analysts’ expectations of $27.67 billion. Profits slipped 24% to $5.71 billion, weighed down by restructuring charges. But earnings per share were $2.20, better than expected $2.03.
Alphabet e Microsoft
The first quarter of the year for Alphabet closed with profits slipping to 15.05 billion from 16.44 billion, equal to earnings per share of 1.17 dollars against 1.07 expected. Revenue surged 3% to $69.79 billion, over $68.9 expected. The crucial advertising sales, which still represent a large part of the business, exceeded expectations, totaling 54.55 billion. However, it recorded a decrease compared to last year. The subsidiary YouTube in videos, particularly under observation because it suffers from competition from TikTok, pocketed 6.69 billion, meeting expectations.
Microsoft saw earnings jump 9% to $18.3 billion in its fiscal third quarter, or $2.45 a share versus $2.22 expected. Revenue climbed 7% to $52.86 billion. The Intelligent Cloud segment, which includes “cloud” services as well as servers, generated a total of 22.08 billion in revenue, an increase of 16% and exceeding the forecasts of 21.94 billion.
Netflix e Tesla
Netflix reported profits of $1.31 billion, or $2.88 per share, versus expectations of $2.86. Turnover grew by 3.7% to 8.16 billion, in line with expectations. The streaming leader added 1.75 million new subscribers, albeit less than the expected 2.3 million. And he said goodbye definitively to the past, putting an end to the DVD rental business. Tesla had a more challenging season: It ended the first quarter with revenues up 24% to $23.32 billion but profits down by as much to $2.51 billion, weakened by repeated rounds of list price cuts of cars precisely to prioritize sales support. A new “discount” from the company led by Elon Musk still happened on the eve of the budget. And Musk, in the conference call following the announcement of the results, made it clear that the company’s strategy to face the challenges of economic uncertainty and competition remains this: focus on growth and volumes, on market share gains , even at the cost of sacrificing margins and profits.