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The Covid-19 pandemic may have been detrimental to the global economy, but it has done no harm to the earning power of the world s biggest technology companies.
As many people stayed indoors to stem the spread of the virus and relied more on technology for work and entertainment, leading tech companies posted a significant increase in their revenues in the first quarter of this year, even as supply chain disruptions led to a global shortage of semiconductors.
The National looks at how much revenue the FAANG group [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google s parent company Alphabet] of technology heavyweights, Microsoft and electric vehicle maker Tesla made per minute in the first three months to March 31.
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Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares traded higher by 1.3% on Friday after the company’s first-quarter earnings numbers far exceeded expectations.
For the first quarter, Amazon reported adjusted EPS of $15.79 on $108.5 billion in revenue. Both numbers beat consensus analyst estimates of $9.54 and $104.4 billion, respectively. Revenue was up 44% from a year ago.
Amazon Web Services cloud revenue was up 32% in the quarter to $13.5 billion. Online retail sales were up 44% to $52.9 billion.
Amazon also guided for second-quarter revenue of between $110 billion and $116 billion, above analyst estimates of $108.6 billion. Amazon’s second-quarter revenue will get a boost from the company’s annual Prime Day event, which Amazon confirmed will take place in June.
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Analysts were left with many questions after
Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) reported first quarter earnings. Future concerns exist, leading to several price target cuts.
The Twitter Analysts: Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler reiterates a Market Perform rating and has no price target.
Rosenblatt analyst Mark Zgutowicz has a Neutral rating and lowers the price target from $65 to $60.
KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson has an Overweight rating and lowers the price target from $90 to $77.
Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak has an Equal-Weight rating and lowers the price target from $68 to $62.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post has a Buy rating and lowers the price target from $92 to $82.
“Monetization of newer platforms is increasing,” Raymond James Kessler said.
Strong sales of the Oculus Quest 2 were highlighted by several of the analysts in updated notes put out after earnings.
Needham s Martin highlighted the company’s WhatsApp monetization, click-to-message ads on Facebook Messenger, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Watch as positives in the quarter.
The first-quarter results for Facebook’s engagement with Shops were a positive for Thill.
“We are particularly encouraged by the Shops monetization opportunity, as one of our recent experts noted that posts with instant checkout have 3x higher conversion rates than non-shoppable posts.”
Facebook’s commerce business is in the early stages and bears watching according to Wedbush s Arounian.
Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and
Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares are both trading higher by 5% after the tech company reported better-than-expected first-quarter EPS and sales results. Alphabet also announced a $50 billion Class C Capital Stock buyback.
A number of analyst rating updates followed the earnings beat:
Keybanc analyst Justin Patterson maintains Alphabet with an Overweight and raises the price target from $2625 to $2681.
Needham analyst Laura Martin maintains Alphabet with a Buy and raises the price target from $2500 to $2700.
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler maintains Alphabet with an Overweight and raises the price target from $2500 to $3000.
Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler maintains Alphabet with an Outperform and raises the price target from $2440 to $2750.