BIg Tech Earning (Quick Recap)

$Amazon(AMZN.US)$ – revenue growth of 14% to $170bn (vs. $166.2bn expected)

A record-breaking holiday shopping season led Amazon to report results that sailed past analysts’ estimates. Also helping matters was strong advertising revenue (27% YoY increase) and an uptick in growth in its famed cloud division (AWS).

$Microsoft(MSFT.US)$ – revenue growth of 18% to $62bn (vs. $61.1bn expected)

Microsoft shot the lights out too, with growth in its cloud business also picking up steam last quarter. Revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 30% vs. 27.7% expected by analysts (and 29% in the previous quarter). Six percentage points of that growth were tied to AI.

$Alphabet-C(GOOG.US)$ – revenue growth of 13% to $86.3bn (vs. $85.3bn expected)

Alphabet's cloud segment also fared better than expected and reported its first-ever full-year profit ($864m in operating income) – a stark reversal from years of losses as it tried to keep up with AWS and Azure. That strong showing helped offset disappointing ad revenue.

$Meta Platforms(META.US)$ – revenue growth of 25% to $40.1bn (vs. $39.2bn expected)

Meta fared better on the ad front, with revenue at its ad business topping forecasts and growing at double the rate of Alphabet’s last quarter. What’s more, the company announced its first-ever dividend, which investors loved (despite it representing a low dividend yield of 0.4%).

$Apple(AAPL.US)$ – revenue growth of 2% to $119.6bn (vs. $117.9bn expected)

Apple had some issues, with sales in China falling 13% last quarter from a year ago. But that was offset by record revenue at its services segment. That’s key: services have much higher profit margins than hardware, which explains why Apple’s gross margin continued to rise last quarter, hitting 45.9% (vs. 45.3% expected).

$NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$ – revenue growth of 265% to $22.1bn (vs. $20.6bn expected)

Relentless demand for Nvidia’s AI chips led the firm to report results that blew past expectations (once again). Huge revenue growth + operating leverage = net income surged 769% to $12.3bn. The firm also gave an upbeat forecast for the current quarter, suggesting that AI demand just keeps getting stronger.

With the cohort's expectation-busting results behind us, the wider market could have the green light to continue rallying, with Big Tech widely expected to continue leading the charge.