☁️ (AI)l in the cloud… Microsoft flew past Wall Street’s growth estimates, notching record quarterly sales and 27% profit growth. The Word wizard benefited as the AI craze drove its Azure cloud sales up 29%. Yet Google’s stock slid after its cloud revenue fell short of expectations, and Amazon also disappointed with its AWS cloud growth. Tech heavyweights have been trying to incorporate more AI into their cloud-computing products after Microsoft’s $10B investment in OpenAI positioned it as a leader in the race.
📱 Ad-pocalypse over?… Meta posted its fastest sales growth in two years (up 23%) and a record Q3 profit, fueled by rebounding ad sales (which, btw, make up nearly 100% of its revenue). But Meta’s metaverse unit lost $3.7B and saw revenue drop 26%. Snap’s sales grew for the first time in two quarters as it attracted more ad $$ with fresh features. Snap said 200M+ people have used its My AI chatbot, which now includes sponsored links. Google’s quarterly revenue popped 11% thanks to stronger-than-expected YouTube and ad sales.
🛍️ Full e-carts… Amazon’s quarterly profit more than tripled from a year ago to $9.9B, crushing estimates. Its North American biz turned an operating profit after posting a loss last year, as consumers splurged on pumpkin-scented candles and holiday deco. The ecomm juggernaut credited its Prime Big Deal Days (including its largest two-day October holiday event) for selling “hundreds of millions” of products worldwide.
Looking forward → Big Tech has been rebounding, partly because of cost-cutting measures like layoffs. AI continues to fuel growth, with forecasts saying it could boost corporate profits by a massive $4.4T/year. But tech shares tumbled this week, and Meta and Snap warned that the Israel-Hamas war could hurt ad spend this quarter. Investors have eyes on reports from Apple, AMD, Pinterest, and Qualcomm next week.