The big tech earnings roundup also includes recent financial outlooks for Alphabet and Snap. Boardroom breaks down each company below.
Big tech companies have been announcing mass layoffs across the industry in recent months, pushing analysts to believe that their businesses were suffering.
That reality is true for some and false for others. Meta shocked the market the most when its shares jumped nearly a quarter following its recent earnings report, which came nearly two months after it announced cutting 11,000 jobs. This was the largest decrease in workforce in the company’s history, which cost it $975 million in severance and other related expenses in the final quarter of 2022.
Before we jump into a recap of big tech earnings reports from the week, check out Boardroom’s recent coverage on financial outlooks for Peloton, EA, Spotify, Southwest, Tesla, and Microsoft.
Here are some high-level takeaways from this week’s big tech earnings reports.
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Apple
Apple’s shares fell as much as 4% after the company released its first fiscal earnings report for 2023 on Thursday. The tech giant reported $117.2 billion in revenue for the quarter, down 5.5% year-over-year. Apple expected to attract $121.1 billion in revenue but posted its first year-over-year revenue decline since 2019.
Apple CEO Tim Cook named Apple’s iPhone sales decline as one of the reasons the company fell short in its recent corner. iPhone sales dropped 8% year-over-year to $65.8 billion, missing its expectation to hit $68.3 billion.
High-level takeaways from Apple’s recent earnings report:
- Earnings per share are down 10.9% year-over-year.
- Operational expenses hit $14.3 billion, which includes $7.7 billion in research and development.
- Mac revenue was down 28.7% year-over-year to $7.7 billion.
- iPad revenue was up $9.4 billion, an increase of 29.7% year-over-year.
- Services revenue was up 6.4% to $20.8 billion.
Apple continued not to provide guidance on its financial forecast as its been doing since 2020. Analysts expect the big tech company to hit $98 billion in sales next quarter.
Alphabet
Alphabet’s fourth-quarter earnings from 2022 show that the company made $76.05 billion, a 1% growth year-over-year. Shares for Google‘s parent company fell more than 4% on Thursday when the report dropped.
The company is working against a slowing in the digital advertising market, which accounts for a chunk of its losses in Q4 2022. Alphabet is also fighting an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice and eight states for its advertising business.
Alphabet shares were down 6% on Thursday.
High-level takeaways from Alphabet’s recent earnings report:
- Advertising revenue fell by 4% to $59 billion, with YouTube revenue declining by 8% to $7.96 billion.
- Alphabet ended 2022 with $282.8 billion in revenue, an increase of 10% year-over-year.
- Google cloud lost $830 million.
- Despite announcing 12,000 layoffs in January, Alphabet added 3,455 employees to its workforce in Q4, most of which are in technical roles.
- Net income for Q4 was $13.6 billion, and $59.97 billion for 2022.
“We have significant work underway to improve all aspects of our cost structure, in support of our investments in our highest growth priorities to deliver long-term, profitable growth,” Alphabet and Google CFO Rith Porat said in the report.
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Amazon
Amazon reported a net loss of $2.7 billion in 2022 overall. MorningStar discovered that this is the tech company’s first reported loss in revenue since 2014 and its largest annual loss yet.
Amazon‘s financial outlook is a sad reality after it posted its most profitable quarter a year ago when it reported $14.3 billion in net income. Despite some gains, the e-commerce giant fell short in other areas it expected to excel in. And we can’t forget Amazon is cutting 18,000 members from its workforce.
High-level takeaways from Amazon’s recent earnings report:
- Amazon attracted $149.2 billion in net sales in Q4 after expecting to only hit $145.8 billion in revenue for Q4 of 2022. Revenue increased by 9% compared to Q4 of 2021.
- Online sales attracted $64.5 billion in revenue, but the company expected to hit $65.03 billion.
- The company expected to hit $21.87 billion in Amazon Web Services revenue but only made $21.4 billion in Q4.
- Operating income decreased to $2.7 billion, while Q4 net income decreased to $0.3 billion.
- Amazon expects to attract between $121 billion and $126 billion in revenue in Q1 of 2023.
Amazon blames its annual revenue loss on its investment in electric automaker Rivian. The company’s stock plunged by as much as 82% last year after it went public in late 2021.
“We are working really hard to streamline our costs and trying to do so at the same time that we don’t give up on the long-term, strategic investments that we believe can meaningfully change [the] broad customer experience and change Amazon,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said to investors on its recent earnings call.
Axios reported that Jassy made $212.7 million in total compensation in 2021, 6,474 times greater than the average Amazon employee’s salary.
Meta
Meta‘s shares spiked over 23% on Wednesday, marking one of the tech company’s best days on the stock market in nearly a decade. The company earned $32.17 billion in revenue in Q4 and $116.61 billion in total for 2022.
Meta’s founder and leader Mark Zuckerberg expressed much optimism following the release of the company’s 2022 fourth-quarter earnings report. Meta exceeding revenue expectations in Q4 and a district judge denying the FTC’s request to block its acquisition of virtual reality startup Within Unlimited is a great way to kick off 2023.
But will this positive traction stick for Meta? Zuckerberg thinks so.
“Our community continues to grow, and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps,” Zuckerberg said in a news release. “The progress we’re making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this. Beyond this, our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency,’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.”
High-level takeaways from Meta’s recent earnings report:
- Facebook hit 2 billion daily active users, up 4% year-over-year.
- Meta spent $25.8 billion on operational costs and expenses. This includes spending $3.76 billion on restructuring its Family of Apps and $440 million on restructuring Reality Labs.
- Q4 revenue fell by 4% compared to Q4 2021, a third straight quarter of decline in sales.
- Employee count increased 20% year-over-year to 86,482 workers, including the 11,000 employees Meta laid off in November.
- Reality Labs posted a $4.28 billion operating loss, though the division generated $727 million in Q4.
Meta expects revenue in Q1 of 2023 to hit between $26 billion and $28.5 billion. The big tech company anticipates revenue will fall between $89 billion and $95 billion for the entire year, which is lower than its previous forecast of $94 billion to $100 billion.
Forbes reported that Zuckerberg’s fortune increased by $12 billion on Thursday following Meta’s big day on the stock market since he owns 350 million shares. This bumped Zuckerberg to #16 on Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker, up eight spots from his previous post.
Snap
Snap shares fell more than 14% on Tuesday after the social media company shared its fourth-quarter revenue report. Snapchat‘s parent company brought in $4.6 billion in revenue in 2022, with $1.3 billion coming in during Q4.
Last year was rough for Snap, which let go of 20% of its workforce in late August. After IRS Q2 earnings report last year, Snap’s stock fell by nearly 40%, and after Q3, it was down almost 30%.
High-level takeaways from Snap’s recent earnings report:
- Snap ended 2022 with 375 million daily active users, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
- The company saw 12% year-over-year revenue growth.
- Net loss was $288 million, which includes $34 million worth of restructuring costs.
- Over 60 million Snapchat users watched World Cup Stories content, and over 285 million users engaged with World Cup AR.
- The Snapchat+ subscription service reached over 2 million subscribers
This is the third quarter in a row that Snap reported a disappointing financial outlook to investors, who analysts say should have seen a slight revenue bump this time.
“On the monetization side, we anticipate that the operating environment will remain challenging, as we expect the headwinds we have faced over the past year to persist throughout Q1,” the company told investors in a letter.
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