Meta, formerly known as Facebook, made headlines with an astonishing 14% jump, pushing the stock to an all-time high of $451.
After announcing its first dividend, the company’s market capitalization jumped by $148 billion, reaching a staggering $1.16 trillion.
The unprecedented move towards dividend payments, coupled with an impressive 25% increase in sales to $40.1 billion in the December quarter, has heightened investor enthusiasm.
Meta’s resurgence over the past year has been fueled by renewed investor optimism about AI and the company’s efforts to shore up user growth and digital ad sales.
Meta’s Reality Labs division, which focuses on metaverse technology and augmented reality, posted sales of $1.1 billion, beating expectations.
The company also announced plans to ramp up capital spending, with $30 billion to $37 billion invested in servers, with a focus on strengthening its AI capabilities.
Amazon soars
E-commerce giant Amazon’s stock price rose 8% on Thursday after it impressively beat sales expectations for the December quarter.
The surge reflects strong growth in online spending during the crucial holiday shopping season, and pushed Amazon’s market capitalization to a whopping $1.78 trillion.
Nevertheless, Amazon faces stiff competition in the cloud services space, particularly from rival Microsoft, which has challenged Amazon’s dominance.
AWS CEO Andy Jassy emphasized the division’s focus on customer-centric innovation and highlighted its efforts to incorporate generative AI into its services.
Although generative AI revenues remain relatively small, Jassy expects AI to drive significant revenue growth in the coming years.
AWS’ revenue for the December quarter was $24.2 billion, in line with analyst expectations.
To further strengthen its cloud business and align with Microsoft’s AI investments, Amazon announced a massive investment of up to $4 billion in chatbot maker Anthropic.
Going forward, investors expect Amazon’s advertising revenue to grow further due to expansion of its advertising services division and Prime Video advertising business. But not all of Amazon’s efforts were successful, as European regulators halted its plan to acquire iRobot for $1.4 billion.
apple stumbles
Amid shareholder euphoria over Meta and Amazon, iPhone maker Apple found itself in a precarious position.
The company reported quarterly results that beat analysts’ expectations in terms of profits and sales, supported by growth in its iPhone division, but the company’s stock price on Thursday fell as attention was focused on disappointing sales in China. It fell 3.3%.
Sales in China were $20.82 billion, lower than analysts’ expectations of $23.53 billion, according to LSEG data.
Counterpoint Research reported a decline in iPhone shipments in China during the quarter, further highlighting the challenges Apple faces in the region.
Despite the weakness in China, Apple’s overall performance beat expectations, with iPhone sales up 6% to $69.7 billion, beating analyst expectations.
The company’s services business also saw strong growth, with revenue rising 11% to $23.12 billion, although it was slightly below analyst expectations.
Apple’s wearables division, which includes AirPods and Apple Watch sales, fell to $11.95 billion as demand remained weak despite warnings from company executives.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sought to reassure investors during an earnings call, saying the company is “incredibly excited” about future developments in generative AI.