Apple, Facebook rating with pandemic-hit consumers: profits surge
Apple and Facebook on Wednesday delivered beautiful gains in gains and revenues in the last quarter, in the latest signal that Big Tech is delivering for pandemic-hit consumers around the world.
Blowout quarterly updates from both Silicon Valley giants highlighted how consumers increasingly relied on public media, digital services and gadgetry as they hunkered down for the global health crisis.
Apple said profit in the holiday period rose 29 percent from a year ago to $28.7 billion, while revenues grew 21 percent to $111.4 billion, with international sales accounting for practically two-thirds of sales.
Sales topped the $100 billion tag for the first time as Apple won over pandemic-hit customers with new gizmos and services, reporting solid gains in revenue of iPhones, wearables and digital articles.
"We're gratified by the enthusiastic consumer response to the unmatched type of cutting-edge products that people delivered across a historic holidays," leader Tim Cook said.
The news headlines was similar at Facebook, which saw its global user base upsurge in a world roiled by the coronavirus outbreak.
Facebook reported profit of $11.2 billion on revenue of $28 billion, rises of 53 percent and 33 percent in comparison to the same period the last year.
"We had a solid end to the entire year as persons and businesses continued to use our services of these challenging times," said Facebook leader Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook said its main social network had some 2.8 billion users towards the end of December while 3.3 billion people used at least among its "family" of apps including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
The Silicon Valley colossus noted in the let go that it faces "significant uncertainty" in the year ahead, citing new restrictions that could limit how it gives targeted advertising.
Facebook takes in the bulk of its revenue from advertising and marketing, and said that it benefited seeing as the pandemic accelerated a shift to online commerce, particularly for goods as opposed to services such as booking travel.
"Looking forward, a moderation or perhaps reversal in one or both these trends could serve due to a headwind to your advertising earnings growth," Facebook said in the release.
Facebook also warned that it expects to handle strong "headwinds" from a great evolving regulatory landscape and from techniques such as an Apple change to its mobile operating-system making it tougher to target ads.
"As the timing of the iOS 14 changes remains uncertain, we would expect to see a direct effect beginning late in the 1st quarter," Facebook said.
The social networking giant previous month opened fire on Apple, saying the iPhone maker's new measures on info collection and targeted ads would hurt small businesses.
The dispute between the tech giants centers around changes in the most recent version of Apple's iOS operating software, such as a tracking transparency feature that Facebook claims will cripple its capability to serve up targeted ads.
Source: japantoday.com
