Tech giants record revenue hikes as MSMEs struggle amid pandemic
Even as the micro and small industries struggle to survive amid the coronavirus pandemic due to economic fallout across the globe, world’s biggest tech companies are observing remarkably different trends so far.
Even as the micro and small industries struggle to survive amid the coronavirus pandemic due to economic fallout across the globe, world’s biggest tech companies are observing remarkably different trends so far.
In the midst of the global lockdown, companies such as Apple, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft have reported an increase in the revenue in the first quarter of 2020, pointing to a positive growth.
Apple, even after observing a significant decline in the demand for its hardware-focused products, registered around one per cent hike in their first quarter revenue. Its revenue from services, including paid subscriptions such as App Store, iTunes, Apple Music and Apple Pay reached $13.35 billion over $11.45 billion in the previous year.
Amazon recorded the highest growth of 26.5 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2019 among these tech giants. It had posted a revenue of $ 59.7 billion in Q1 2019 while it jumped to $ 75.5 billion in Q1 2020. Amazon, which is operating in many countries amid pandemic, is also selling essential goods that many people prefer to be delivered at home instead of stepping outside.
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The work from the home policy followed by many sectors has turned out to be the boon for Microsoft. Their online workplace service and communication tools including Office 365 have reported more than 70 per cent increase in the active users in just a month. In March 2020, it had around 44 million active users while in April it boomed to 75 million said the company.
Interestingly, the advertising revenue of Facebook is up by 17 per cent year-over-year. The company said that it has seen a decline in ads at the beginning of April.
In terms of user growth and engagement, Facebook achieved a new feat. Since billions of people are locked down across the world, Facebook saw a huge surge in the active users on all the four apps – Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram. It had more than 3 billion active users every month on its different apps in the first quarter of 2020. This is the highest ever user engagement ever achieved by the company.
To date, there have been positive numbers all across the balance sheets of these giants. However, it will be important to see the figures for the second quarter to gauge the upcoming trend in the tech sector.