Amazong Reports Strong Earnings On Rivian's Pop

Amazon's profit nearly doubled during the holiday season, thanks to better-than-expected labor and supply cost control, as well as advances in its cloud computing and advertising divisions. The tech and e-commerce behemoth announced quarterly revenue of $137.4 billion, up from $125.6 billion a year before. Profit increased to $14.3 billion, up from $7.2 billion the previous year.

  • Some experts expected earnings to be more modest as Amazon grappled with increased costs on a variety of fronts
  • The company's investment in Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer, gave it a major boost in the quarter. This resulted in a profit of about $12 billion, accounting for the majority of the company's earnings for the quarter

Yet, the pandemic continues to pose hurdles, according to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos last year.

  • Faced with a labor shortage, Amazon upped compensation to an average of $18 per hour last year and expanded incentives, including signing bonuses of up to $3,000 in some areas
  • For the first time in four years, Amazon raised the price of its Prime membership. The cost of an annual Prime membership will rise to $139 from $119, according to Amazon

Meta Disappoints

Last quarter, Facebook's user numbers fell for the first time in its existence. Over the last three months of 2021, Facebook's parent company Meta announced daily active users number standing at 1.929 billion. It had an average of 1.93 billion active users in the third quarter of 2021. This translates to a loss of about 1 million users.

  • Meta is loosing ground to TikTok and other alternatives more popular with younger audiences
  • All while it is expected to lose $10 billion in ad revenue this year as over 95% of iPhone users who have downloaded the updated iOS software, have decided to opt out of ad tracking

Disclaimer

Please note that this article does not constitute investment advice in any form. This article is not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security or financial product does not guarantee future returns. Investors have to conduct their own research before conducting any transaction. There is always the risk of losing parts or all of your money when you invest in securities or other financial products.

Credits

Photo by Andrew Stickelman on Unsplash.