Facebook and Apple beat expectations

Feuding tech giants Apple and Facebook both reported very strong results after US markets closed on Wednesday.

Apple posted sales and profits far ahead of Wall Street expectations and announced a $90 billion share buyback as customers continued to upgrade to 5G iPhones and snapped up new Mac models with Apple’s house-designed processor chips.

Sales to China nearly doubled and results topped analyst targets in every category, led by $6.5 billion more in iPhone sales than predicted and Mac sales about a third higher than estimates. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the company sees an economic recovery coming.

Facebook beat market expectations for quarterly revenue, powered by higher ad spending by businesses during a pandemic-induced surge in online traffic.

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Total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, rose to $26.17 billion in the first quarter ended March 31st, beating analysts’ average estimate of $23.67 billion.

The world’s largest social media company said in its outlook that it expected second-quarter revenue growth to be stable or grow moderately, but warned that the third- and fourth-quarter growth rates could “significantly” decline when compared with past periods of increasingly strong growth. It cited that a new pop-up privacy notification from Apple could hurt the business during the second quarter.

Facebook’s monthly active users rose 10 per cent to 2.85 billion, matching analyst expectations. Net income for the fourth quarter came in at $9.5 billion, or $3.30 per share, compared with $4.9 billion, or $1.71 per share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected a profit of $2.37 per share. – Reuters