Big Tech Has Managed to Beat Wall Street’s Expectations This Earnings Season

Big Tech has, so far, managed to beat Wall Street’s expectations this earnings season. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta have largely outperformed analysts’ estimates despite pull backs in consumer and corporate spending.

Tesla Inc., however, missed first-quarter profit estimates after a series of price cuts designed to boost demand squeezed margins.

Apple

Apple's stock surged nearly almost 5% on Friday, hitting a nine-month high and on track for its biggest one-day gain since November after the iPhone maker's quarterly results cheered investors worried about a potential recession.

Sales of Apple Inc.’s iPhone rebounded last quarter, helping the world’s most valuable company top earnings estimates and weather an industrywide downturn that has battered much of its product lineup.

Overall revenue amounted to $94.8 billion in the fiscal second quarter, according to a statement Thursday, exceeding the $92.6 billion analysts predicted. Though the sales fell 2.5% in the period, Apple had warned investors to expect a drop of roughly twice that.

The results suggest that Apple is beginning to recover from a slump that’s plagued both the computer and smartphone industries. It’s a particular relief for investors after Qualcomm Inc., a key supplier, raised fresh concerns about phone demand earlier this week. Apple’s sales in China — a weak spot for other tech companies — also came in a bit better than expected. 

Microsoft

Microsoft Corp. said its growth remained subdued last quarter as economic concerns cooled consumer demand and corporate orders for the company's software and cloud services.

The software giant said revenue for the three months through March rose 7% from a year earlier. That marked the second straight quarter below the company's yearslong trend of double-digit percentage growth, but the latest quarter and the company's outlook for the current period both topped analysts' expectations, helping send Microsoft's share price sharply higher.

Microsoft's net income rose 9%, a gain that was well above consensus market forecasts.

The company said its revenue this quarter should be between $54.85 billion and $55.85 billion. Wall Street was predicting revenue of $54.71 billion for the quarter.

The cloud-computing business, the engine of Microsoft's growth in recent years, has been decelerating after years of expansion. The company said revenue in its Azure cloud-computing business rose 27% in the latest quarter. That was in line with the average forecast of analysts surveyed by FactSet, and the company's lowest quarterly growth ever.

Alphabet

Alphabet Inc said it would buy back $70 billion in stock and posted first-quarter profit and revenue above estimates as demand rose for cloud services and ad sales held up better than expected.

Advertisers, who contribute the bulk of Alphabet's sales, have curtailed their spending in response to a shift by consumers back to in-store shopping in the wake of eased masking and other restrictions. As well, advertisers are experimenting more with new platforms like TikTok, which attracts a more youthful audience.

Alphabet for the quarter reported a slight dip in ad sales to $54.55 billion from $54.66 billion a year earlier. The decline is just the third in the company’s history since it became public in 2004 but follows a fourth-quarter drop of 3.6%. The company, meanwhile, has been looking to keep a tight control on costs amid recession fears and in January decided to cut about 12,000 jobs.

Alphabet's revenue for the quarter ended March 31 stood at $69.79 billion compared with estimates of $68.95 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

It reported net profit of $15.05 billion for the first three months of the year compared with $16.44 billion a year earlier.

Amazon

Amazon reported results for the Q1 2023 period, outperforming analyst expectations with regards to both topline and earnings. During the period from January to end of March, Amazon generate group revenues of $127.4 billion, up 9% YoY as compared to $116.4 billion in first quarter 2022, and topping analyst consensus estimates by close to $2.75 billion.

With regards to profitability, Amazon's operating income, which includes about $500 million of severance costs, came in at about $4.8 billion, versus $3.7 billion for the same period one year prior (up about 30% YoY); net income came in at $3.2 billion ($0.31/share), beating estimates by ~$800 million.

Amazon.com Inc reported quarterly sales and profit ahead of expectations but said that it was seeing a sharp drop in cloud revenue growth as businesses grappled with an uncertain economy.

April growth rates for Amazon Web Services (AWS) were about 5 per centage points lower than in the first quarter, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on a conference call.

Meta

Meta Platforms reported Wednesday first-quarter results that topped Wall Street expectations and the social media giant provided upbeat revenue guidance amid ongoing progress to bring down costs.

Facebook announced EPS of $2.20 on revenue of $28.65 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $2.02 on revenue of $27.61B.

The better-than-expected results come as the company continued to make progress on its ‘year of efficiency’ pledge in 2022 and advertising revenue grew.

Advertising revenue rose to $28.10B year-on-year in Q1 from $27.00B a year earlier.

Facebook daily active users, or DAUs, rose 4% to 2.04B, while monthly active people, or MAUs, rose 2% to 2.99B.

Tesla

Tesla Inc. missed first-quarter profit estimates after a series of price cuts designed to boost demand squeezed margins.

Revenue rose 24% to $23.33 billion in the quarter, nearly in line with Bloomberg estimates of $23.35 billion. Profit excluding some items fell to 85 cents a share, slightly below the 86-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg, while free cash flow slumped to a two-year low of $441 million. Analysts had expected free cash flow to reach $3.24 billion in the quarter.

The Austin, Texas-based electric-vehicle maker has been slashing prices to protect its leading market position. Tesla said its operating margin was 11.4% in the three-month period, down from 16% last quarter and 19.2% a year ago. Unusually, it didn’t break out its automotive profit margin, which analysts have been watching closely.