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| Tech Giants’ Q1 Results |
Investors are eagerly awaiting quarterly results from U.S. tech giants, including Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Amazon, to see if cost-cutting measures have boosted profits. Analysts predict profits for these companies to rise 4.5% on average from the previous quarter, with Meta expected to have the highest increase. However, compared to the same period last year, profits are expected to drop almost 16%. The companies are also expected to provide updates on their artificial intelligence efforts, which have been a focus for many tech giants. Despite pressure to improve cash flow, expectations for these companies to push the frontier with AI remain high. Additionally, the cloud businesses of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft were more stable than anticipated, and stock prices for these companies have risen throughout the year.
As the largest tech companies in the world, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon together command over $5 trillion in market capitalization, accounting for more than 14% of the value of the S&P 500 index. During the pandemic, these companies experienced a hiring boom, but they later announced job cuts as the economy weakened.
Amazon, which saw a big drop in fourth-quarter profit due to valuation losses from its investment in money-losing EV maker Rivian Automotive, is expected to post a first-quarter profit that is eight times greater than the previous quarter. Meanwhile, research firm YipitData predicts that Amazon’s North American sales will beat Wall Street estimates for Q1.
Apart from financial results, investors are keen to know more about these companies’ artificial intelligence (AI) efforts, a trend that has been apparent since last quarter when CEOs emphasized the technology during earnings calls. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology into its search engine Bing, putting it in direct competition with Google. Google has begun the public release of its chatbot Bard, while Amazon’s cloud division AWS has released a suite of technologies aimed at helping other companies develop their chatbots backed by AI. Meta, for its part, has published an AI model capable of identifying individual objects within an image.
Despite the pressure to improve cash flow in a decelerating economy, tech investors are still expecting these companies to push the frontier with AI. However, it remains to be seen whether cost-cutting measures will be enough to satisfy investors’ profit expectations.
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