The five largest companies by market capitalization (the five big technology companies) present their balance of results for the third quarter of the year this week. To the good data that Facebook presented this Monday, only slightly lower than expected despite going through a reputation crisis, the accounts of Microsoft, Twitter and Google have been added this Tuesday. With gains that double those registered in the same period of the previous year, their balance sheets confirm that the pandemic has only strengthened its market position and that the turbulence that the US economy is going through does not seem to go with them. The digital advertising business continues to boom highs and has catapulted the performance of the Big Three.
Microsoft registered a net profit of 20,505 million dollars (about 16,670 million euros) between last July and September; 48% more than the same period of the previous year. Gross billing was over $ 45 billion, mostly from services, nearly $ 10 billion more than the previous year. The increase brings the market value to 2.73 dollars per share, compared to 1.84 previously. The earnings have surpassed the most optimistic expectations of the company. Bill Gates’s company denounced this Monday a new Russian cyber attack in the wake of the espionage of SolarWinds, the great hack computer science perpetrated in the spring of 2020.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, increased its gross revenue volume 41% in the third quarter to $ 65.12 billion. Net profit increased by 68%, to close to 1.9 billion dollars, a figure that multiplies by two that registered in 2020, and by three, the result of before the pandemic. As in the case of Microsoft, earnings exceeded the company’s expectations. The strong performance underscores the strength of two of the top internet destinations: the Google search engine and the YouTube video platform.
While other social media and businesses that rely on digital advertising have experienced the fallout from Apple’s change in policy of requiring apps to ask users whether they allow traceability, Google’s ad revenue has remained strong, with a 43% rise to 5.3 billion. Despite mounting regulatory pressure, Google remains the number one investment destination for any digital advertiser.
The introduction of Apple’s requirement to consult user tracking has also not hurt Twitter activity, which posted a 37% revenue increase between July and September, to 1.28 billion. The increase has more than offset the outlay of just over $ 800 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit dating back to 2016. The company has also seen it as an achievement to have been able to largely avoid the effects of the privacy changes Apple has enacted, which they have hurt mobile advertising.
The resolution of the shareholding dispute thus represents a minor setback for the Menlo Park company. Apple launched App Tracking Transparency in April, a pop-up window on iPhone apps that gives people the option not to be tracked on apps and websites. The move has hit companies more than Snap – and, to some extent, Facebook – rely on tracking to gather information about users so they can better personalize and target ads.
Subscribe here to the newsletter from EL PAÍS América and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of the region