Tech giants defy economic downturns, report a combined profit of $28 bn

Though the tech industry's four biggest companies were stung by a slowdown in spending, they reported a combined profit of $28 billion

A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook reported surprisingly healthy quarterly financial results, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record.

Even though the companies felt some sting from the spending slowdown, they demonstrated, as critics have argued, that they are operating on a different playing field from the rest of the economy.

Amazon’s sales were up 40 per cent from a year ago and its profit doubled. Facebook’s profit jumped 98 per cent. Even though the pandemic shuttered many of its stores,