Tech World’s Winners & Losers After a Wild Week of Earnings, From Amazon to Apple

Here’s what stood out from tech’s biggest players

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If you had better things to do this week than sit around and track the quarterly earnings reports of tech giants, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

With heavyweights like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google all reporting this week, let’s take a look at the winners and losers:

Winner: Amazon

Amazon is not only selling an unreal amount of products — accounting for about half of all online holiday shopping — but regularly turns a profit while doing so. Amazon posted its 11th straight quarterly profit on Thursday, netting nearly $2 billion.

Wall Street is ordering more shares on Friday, as the company jumped 5 percent in early trading to scrape its all-time high of about $1,464.

Now let’s all sit back and watch the remaining 20 city candidates for Amazon’s “HQ2” fall over themselves trying to woo CEO Jeff Bezos.

Loser: iPhone X

So much for the “supercycle,” or wave of phone upgrades Apple investors were banking on. Apple sold 77.3 million phones during its latest quarter — an ungodly amount of phones, to be sure, but still below Wall Street expectations of about 80 million. That also fell about a million short of its best iPhone sales quarter ever, achieved last year.

Maybe this is too harsh on Apple, but the world’s biggest company gets graded on a curve. Its tentpole iPhone X, released last October, was supposed to take the market by storm.

CEO Tim Cook touted its facial recognition technology and sleek, home button-less screen when it was first unveiled. But so far its $999 price tag has failed to drum up the support from Apple fanboys that was expected.

Winner: Apple’s Giant Stash of Cash

Here’s the thing for Apple, though: Even when things are bad, they’re still damn good. Lackluster iPhone sales were offset by an 18 percent year-over-year increase in services revenue, along with 1.3 billion devices activated within the Apple ecosystem, according to Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures.

The company’s $88.3 billion in sales was a quarterly record. And its fabled cash horde swelled to $284 billion — or $163 billion minus debt. Don’t be shocked if Apple makes more Shazam-esque acquisitions moving forward.

Loser: Facebook’s News Feed

At least right now. Facebook is in the midst of overhauling its News Feed, aiming to replace viral videos with more “meaningful” interactions between family and friends. It looks like a necessity, with domestic users dropping for the first time ever — from 185 million to 184 million.

“The world is anxious and divided and that played out on Facebook… we have a responsibility to fully understand how our services are used and to do everything we can to amplify the good, and prevent the harm,” said Zuckerberg earlier this week.

The remarkable thing, though: Facebook still increased its sales 47 percent year-over-year, despite its growing pains. If it finds a better formula for News Feed, it’ll only bolster its booming ad business. Wall Street is waiting around to see the update, with shares of FB pushing to all-time highs after earnings released on Wednesday.

Winner: Netflix

Rather than fret about streamers sharing their login info, Netflix has instead focused on building a mountain of content to draw in new subscribers. That bet has paid off, with the streaming giant grabbing 8.33 million subscribers during the fourth quarter — lapping its previous quarterly record of 7 million.

Netflix now has more than 117 million (paying) streamers around the globe, and its stock has blitzed to a new all-time high. Remember when Blockbuster said thanks but no thanks to buying Netflix for $50 million? Oof.

Loser: Google 

It was a mixed bag when Google parent Alphabet reported its financials on Thursday. The company’s $32.72 billion in sales beat expectations, but its earnings were slightly off the mark.

Rising traffic acquisition costs — which jumped 33 percent year-over-year — spooked investors, with shares falling 5 percent in early trading on Friday. As mobile searches rise, Google will have to continue paying big money to keep its ad dollars flowing in.

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