Big tech companies show resilience to Covid-19 pandemic, politics

Combined sale leapt 18% YoY, 4% higher than expected

The world’s largest tech companies notched a blowout third quarter on Thursday, aided by a pandemic that spurred demand for smartphones, e-commerce and cloud computing for at-home workers. Less upbeat was the outlook for the rest of the year.
 
In a closely watched measure of how four of the five biggest companies in the world are faring, Facebook, Amazon.com, Apple and Alphabet shrugged off fears over regulatory scrutiny and a frothing tech bubble to post earnings for the September quarter that beat projections.
 
Apple fell 5.22 per cent in intraday trade as of 9 pm (IST). Alphabet was up 3.93 per cent as of 9 pm (IST). Amazon was down 4.38% and Facebook was down 6.98 per cent. Twitter was down at 20.8 per cent.
 
Alphabet’s revenue rose 14 per cent from the same time last year to $46.2 billion. Its profit soared 59 per cent to $11.2 billion. Amazon’s sales increased by $26 billion, or 37 per cent, in the Q3 from a year earlier.  Apple’s profit dropped 7 per cent from the year-ago quarter to $12.7 billion. Apple’s revenue rose to $64.7 billion.

 
Facebook’s profit jumped 29 per cent to $7.8 billion in July-September period.
 
Twitter said it added just a million new daily users in the third quarter, far fewer than analysts estimated, dashing optimism that the social network would benefit from a return of live sports and the coming US election. The company reported 187 million daily users at the end of the quarter, an increase of 29 per cent from last year, but a paltry gain over the previous period.

 
Risk of civil unrest around US elections: Zuckerberg
 
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said the US presidential election November 3 will be a test of four years of work and adjustment by the social network to root out foreign interference, voter suppression, calls for violence and more.
 
“Next week will certainly be a test for Facebook,” the chief executive officer said on a conference call Thursday to discuss quarterly earnings. “Election integrity is and will be an ongoing challenge. And I’m proud of the work that we have done here.”“I’m worried that with our nation so divided, and election results potentially taking days or weeks to be finalized, there’s a risk of civil unrest across the country,” he said.