(BFM Bourse) – The 5 technological giants whose combined valuation is close to 10,000 billion dollars all reported record revenues and profits for the whole of 2021. But some still disappointed Wall Street. Focus on results, still impressive, but received in different ways.
Record results but (very) diverse fortunes for GAFAM on the stock market after their annual publications. If the 5 technological giants have all seen their profits climb to a level never reached before over the whole of 2021, it is an understatement to say that, for some, a big downside is necessary.
Between them, the tech giants raked in more than $1.4 trillion in revenue over the past year, more than Mexico’s GDP, up from $1.1 trillion the previous year. Their cumulative net profits reached more than 320 billion over the period, including more than 100 billion for Apple alone. These profits correspond to more than double those expected to be generated by all CAC 40 groups in 2021.
These impressive figures nevertheless hide large disparities, with some publications having exploded market expectations while others came out just in line with analysts’ forecasts;
Despite its record annual profit of 39.3 billion dollars, Facebook even frankly disappointed the market, which resulted in a collapse of the title Meta – parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp this Thursday (-26.4 %). The group led by Mark Zuckerberg has therefore given up more than a quarter of its market value, or 251 billion dollars, which is a record in a single session. The market notably criticizes Meta for a quarterly net profit lower than that of 2020 over the last three months of the year, the first loss of monthly active users of its original social network, and the prospect of a sharp slowdown in the group’s revenue growth between January and March 2022.
In the other direction, Apple wowed investors again, reporting record quarterly sales of $124 billion despite chip shortages, well above consensus, still driven by iPhone sales ( $71.6 billion between October and December), estimated at 40 million devices during the holiday season. Another takeaway from the release of the first global capitalization: Apple’s share of the smartphone market in China reached 23% in the fourth quarter, a record high, and the American company ranked first among manufacturers there. for the first time in six years. On the stock market, this publication was rewarded, the title Apple returning close to its historical peak reached in early January (at more than 3,000 billion “market cap”) at the start of the week.
After suffering the rout of Meta on Thursday (-7.8%), Amazon took off again by more than 12% on Wall Street in the first exchanges on Friday, the world No. 1 in e-commerce having reported the previous evening quarterly earnings above expectations; at $14.3 billion. The group led by Jeff Bezos has also announced an increase in subscription rates to its Prime service in the United States. Note that while the net profit for the last three months includes a pre-tax gain of $11.8 billion from its stake in the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, the net profit also came out better than expected excluding exceptional items. And investors are therefore ignoring the slightly disappointing forecasts issued by Amazon for the January-March period, on which it expects sales of between 112 billion and 117 billion dollars, when analysts expected 120 billion.
Still driven by its division dedicated to the cloud (+26 in revenue between October and December 2021, compared to a year earlier), Microsoft also unveiled quarterly results above expectations on Tuesday January 25. The Redmond firm’s overall revenue thus amounted to $51.73 billion, compared to $43.08 billion a year earlier, and a consensus of $50.88 billion, according to Refinitiv data. . Its net profit reached 18.76 billion over the period (+ 21.3% over one year), and Microsoft returned $ 10.9 billion to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends over the last three months of the year, an increase of 9% compared to October-December 2020. A few days earlier, the technological giant had announced the largest acquisition in its history, that of the video game publisher Activision for nearly 70 billions of dollars. Timidly welcomed at first when the technology compartment suffered a sharp resurgence of risk aversion among operators at the end of January, these results then offered a rebound to Microsoft, the only other group on the planet valued at more than 2,000 billion dollars.
Alphabet could soon join Apple and Microsoft in this tightly-knit club, with Google nearly doubling its annual profits in 2021 to $76 billion, after a particularly successful holiday season for the online advertising giant accused of illegal monopoly by various authorities. . Between October and December, revenue reached $75.3 billion, three times more than analysts expected, setting a record for the third consecutive quarter. The group’s advertising revenue notably largely beat market forecasts, at 61.2 billion (+32.5%) over the period against a consensus of 57.5 billion. Net profit for its part registered a 4th consecutive quarterly record at more than 20 billion over the last three months of the year. The Alphabet title jumped 7.5% the day after this publication, on Wednesday, returning very close to its all-time high of last November.
Quentin Soubranne – ©2022 BFM Bourse