Triple A’s of American tech stocks has yet again made their investors proud and richer by continuing their growth momentum and chalking another stellar year with all time high revenue and profits. All three company’s made a combined revenue that surpasses many medium countries GDP, totaling US$510 billion (RM2 Trillion) in sales for 2017. To give a perspective, Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product which means total sales generated by all the businesses in our country of 30 million in 2016 was just US$296 billion, Singapore a ‘developed nation’ made US$297 still half of what Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon made together.
Profits was also reported as all time high as more users pick up devices and services offered by these tech company’s, advertising dollars continue to pour in for Alphabet while Alexa continues to expand beyond Echo to third party devices. iPhone contributes the most revenue for Apple making more than half of total income, and the move to price the iPhone X seems to work well for the bottom line as sales slowed down but revenue topped up.
Apple
Cuppertino based Apple made US$229 billion for the year ending 2017 compared to US$215 the previous year which saw a decline for the first time for the company. The rebound was attributed for the strong quarter four with the launch of new iPhones and the highly priced iPhone X.
“We’re thrilled to report the biggest quarter in Apple’s history, with broad-based growth that included the highest revenue ever from a new iPhone lineup. iPhone X surpassed our expectations and has been our top-selling iPhone every week since it shipped in November,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO
The forecast for 2018 quarter 1 also looks rosy with a 13% increase from a year ago with the anticipation of iPhone X continue to see demands outside America. China and Japan are key markets with double digit growth year on year.
Alphabet
Google is making loads of cash for parent company, advertising dollars made significant contribution to the bottom line. The company ends the year making US$12 billion in unaudited profits down US$7 billion from the previous mainly attributing to one time tax payments.
“Our business is driving great growth, with 2017 revenues of $110.9 billion, up 23% year on year, and fourth quarter revenues of $32.3 billion, up 24% year on year. Our full year operating income growth continues to underscore our core strength, and on top of this, we continue to make substantial investments for the long-term in exciting new businesses,” said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet.
Amazon
The darling stock on the exchange, Jeff Bezos amaze critics and analysts with his company’s performance every year. Nett sales rose to US$177.9 billion, compared with $136.0 billion in 2016 a 31% increase.
“Our 2017 projections for Alexa were very optimistic, and we far exceeded them. We don’t see positive surprises of this magnitude very often — expect us to double down,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO
It also reported that there are now over 30,000 skills from outside developers adopting Alexa with more than 4000 smart home devices from 1200 unique brands with the voice activated intelligence. More manufacturers are already queuing up to incorporate Alexa into their hardware.
In summary there cash register is not looking at stopping ringing any time soon, the wind is on their sails and with reserves any central bank in the world can only dream off, there will no problem they can’t can overcome. Lookout for more innovative products and solution this year and if the engineers get stumped there is always the option of acquisition!
