29/04/2022
Tech giants slowed down due to inflation and shortages
San Francisco (awp/afp) - The tech giants, which pranced on peaks during the pandemic, were overtaken by inflation, shortages, competition and regulators at the start of the year. Challenges that will continue to mark their year 2022.
Google, Meta and Apple for Silicon Valley, Microsoft and Amazon, neighbors of Seattle, all released their quarterly results this week. Their turnovers of several tens of billions of dollars have nonetheless remained impressive, and more or less in line with, or even exceeded, market expectations. But the economic situation, linked to the health crisis and the war in Ukraine, is weighing on their growth and their prospects.
Amazon has thus disappointed investors with weaker than expected sales forecasts for the current quarter: between 116 and 121 billion dollars, instead of the 125 billion expected by the consensus of analysts FactSet. Its chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, evaluated Thursday at 6 billion the additional costs over the first three months of the year, due in particular to the loss of productivity, inflation and the cost of labor - during the pandemic, the online retail giant doubled its staff to 1.62 million employees worldwide.
Its stock fell about 9% in electronic trading after the stock market closed.