Consumers updated their gadgets and sought cloud storage amid lockdowns, resulting in record revenues for IT giants.
Apple’s earnings nearly quadrupled to $21.7 billion (£15.6 billion) in the three months ending June 30 as buyers purchased more expensive 5G iPhones.
At the same time, Microsoft reported a $16.5 billion profit, up 47 percent year on year owing to increased demand for cloud services and gaming.
Analysts have cautioned that the statistics might lead to requests for tech companies to cut back.
Alphabet, Google’s parent firm, also revealed on Tuesday that quarterly sales and profitability had reached all-time highs.
This was primarily due to an increase in spending on internet advertising directed at customers who were forced to buy online while at home owing to limitations.
Its video network YouTube, for example, saw advertising-income climb to $7 billion in the three months ended 30 June, up from $3.81 billion the previous year.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, stated that there was a “growing tide of online activity in many areas of the world, and we’re happy that our services assisted so many customers and companies.”
According to Ruth Porat, the company’s chief financial officer, sales of $61.9 billion reflected “elevated consumer online activity” as certain economies recover from the coronavirus epidemic.
Meanwhile, Apple’s record revenues were bolstered by an increase in iPhone purchases as well as digital subscriptions to its TV and music streaming services.
“This quarter, our teams built on an unprecedented era of innovation by releasing powerful new products with our consumers, at a time when utilizing technology to connect people worldwide has never been more essential,” said CEO Tim Cook.
The California tech behemoth also singled out China as its fastest-growing market, as customers scooped up accessories like the Apple Watch and the newest iPhone 12 model, which can connect to faster 5G wireless networks.
Given the worldwide semiconductor scarcity impacting many businesses, including Apple, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said, “We would characterize this as a ‘gold medal performance.”
“China remains a critical component in Apple’s formula for success,” he continued, “as we anticipate about 20% of iPhone upgrades will come from this area over the next year with the arrival of the iPhone 13.”
Microsoft also stated on Tuesday that demand for personal computers, which includes Windows software, as well as its new Xbox consoles, drove sales in the fourth quarter, but sales of Xbox content fell somewhat.
According to Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, this suggests that “the gaming pandemic party is coming to an end” and that the company may need to diversify its business more.
Clouds looming
As sectors of the economy have begun to reopen, companies like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple have been setting out strategies for how to expand even as people spend more time away from home – and their gadgets and search the similar companies on the CoRepo search engine.
Microsoft has now released a cloud-based version of its operating system.
Mr. Pescatore also noted that Silicon Valley behemoths are currently under increasing scrutiny as revenues climb.
“A darker and larger cloud is gathering as these recent results will lead to more requests for regulatory scrutiny to limit their dominance,” he added.
In the United Kingdom, a new regulator is known as the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) has just begun work on developing new codes of conduct for technology companies and their relationships with content producers and advertising.
According to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, the regime would be “unashamedly pro-competition.”
In the United States, President Biden just signed an executive order to encourage more competition.
It was argued that the difficulties arose as a result of huge tech corporations amassing too much personal information, buying up prospective competitors, and competing unfairly with small enterprises.
It made many suggestions, including more monitoring of mergers in the technology industry and a prohibition on unfair techniques of competition on online markets.
