Big Tech crushed earnings this past quarter, proving the resilience of their businesses even as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic.
The big picture: A strong recovery in the advertising market and continued reliance on cloud services and at-home entertainment have given most tech firms a boost.
Details: Despite a few cautious forecasts, the sector shows no sign of slowing down.
- Facebook's stock hit an all-time high Wednesday after reporting a whopping 48% revenue growth year-over-year.
- Apple's earnings report blew past Wall Street estimates, as sales of the iPhone, Mac and iPad all came in far ahead of expectations.
- Amazon blew past analyst expectations for both earnings and revenue on Thursday, as sales surged 44% year-over-year.
- Microsoft crushed Wall Street expectations and posted its highest revenue growth since 2018.
- Google's parent company, Alphabet, reported a record profit last quarter. Its video arm, YouTube, brought in a whopping $6 billion in revenue last quarter, more than Snapchat, Linkedin and Pinterest combined.
- Snapchat beat Wall Street expectations on subscriber growth, earnings and revenue, while also reporting that usage of its AR products hit an all-time high.
Yes, but: Some analysts have warned that the momentum behind these companies could slow down, given the fact that it will be nearly impossible to match the comps from record-high numbers driven by the height of lockdowns last year.
- Twitter, Netflix, and Pinterest shares dropped amid subscriber slowdowns. Twitter reported weak guidance moving forward.
Bottom line: The pandemic has helped solidify the dominance of Big Tech other sectors, like traditional media and retail.