Yahoo Finance Week in Tech: It’s all about earnings and Apple
10/31/2024 00:29In the latest edition of Yahoo Finance's Week in Tech, we're talking all things earnings. And Apple's Mac week includes new laptops, desktops, and chips.
It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for Yahoo Finance’s Week in Tech. I’m Dan Howley, and this week is all about earnings. Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), AMD (AMD), Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Intel (INTC) are each updating investors on their financial performance over the past few months, and AI is top of mind across the board.
Alphabet and AMD reported their results Tuesday, and while both performed well — Alphabet beat Wall Street’s expectations on the top and bottom lines, and AMD met expectations on revenue and beat on earnings per share — shares of the companies are heading in opposite directions, with Alphabet shares headed higher and AMD shares sliding.
Beyond the earnings rush, there was one other big story this week: Apple’s cavalcade of product announcements. The company not only released its initial batch of Apple Intelligence features through software updates for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it also unveiled a line of new Mac laptops and desktops, as well as two new high-powered chips.
It’s been a heck of a week so far, and we’ve still got two days to go.
Big Tech’s earnings season feels like it’s been compressed into a single week, which is both a blessing and a curse for yours truly. Sure, it gets all of the work out of the way in one shot, but it also means my keyboard is getting a heck of a workout.
Google parent Alphabet and AMD both provided solid results on Tuesday, but investors weren’t happy with AMD’s guidance for the current quarter, sending shares sliding more than 9% in early trading Wednesday. Alphabet shares, meanwhile, climbed more than 6% on the strength of its AI and cloud business growth.
AMD said that it expects to see Q4 revenue of between $7.2 billion and $7.8 billion, which was just shy of expectations of $7.55 billion. That’s not exactly the kind of beat and raise Wall Street has come to expect from AI chip names. Still, even at the low end of guidance, AMD’s Q4 revenue would jump $1 billion versus the $6.2 billion it brought in during the same period last year.
Despite disappointment among traders, CEO Lisa Su said there’s an “insatiable demand for more computers” among customers.
Alphabet, on the other hand, is on a roll, thanks to growth in its advertising and cloud services revenue. Ad sales beat expectations, jumping from $59.6 billion a year ago to $65.8 billion in its most recent quarter, while cloud revenue increased a whopping 35%.
Both businesses benefit from Google’s AI investments, with AI for Alphabet’s cloud platform helping to draw enterprise customers and improving advertising services. But Alphabet has plenty of competition, including Microsoft, which reports after the bell on Wednesday, and Amazon on Thursday. There’s still plenty of earnings news ahead, so stay tuned.
Apple is also having a heck of a week, with updates to its iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro lines of desktops and laptops; the debut of two new chips (the M4 Pro and M4 Max); and the rollout of its Apple Intelligence platform.
The new iMac gets upgraded performance via the company’s M4 chip, which first debuted alongside the new iPad Pro back in May. Apple also outfitted the iMac with a new nanotexture display coating to reduce glare and the company’s Center Stage camera that keeps subjects in frame during video calls.
The Mac mini, meanwhile, gets a full redesign that shrinks its footprint to 5 inches by 5 inches. Despite its smaller size, the pint-sized mini is also more powerful than its predecessor, thanks to the inclusion of Apple’s M4 chip, as well as the option to upgrade to the new M4 Pro for even greater performance gains.
Then there’s the MacBook Pro, which is available with the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max. Apple says the Pro can also be equipped with a nanotexture display like the iMac and that it now gets up to 24 hours of battery life.
All of the systems are also built with Apple Intelligence in mind. Available via iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1, Apple Intelligence is the company’s first major step into the generative AI space. But the company is releasing the software in stages throughout the end of this year and across 2025. The first set of capabilities won’t exactly blow consumers’ minds, either.
The platform’s flashiest feature is its notification summaries for texts, news updates, and other messages. But Apple plans to add ChatGPT integration to Siri and release its Apple Intelligence update in the coming months, which should prove far more exciting.
For more on Apple Intelligence, check out my review.
More tech stories
That’s not all that’s happening this week in tech. Check out these other stories you should be following.
X algorithm feeds users political content — whether they want it or not (via WSJ)
Reddit is profitable for the first time ever, with nearly 100 million daily users (via The Verge)
Samsung’s smartphone crown slips with company in crisis (via The Financial Times)
PlayStation closes Firewalk Studios after shutting down ‘Concord’ video game
Email Daniel Howley at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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