Shares in Amazon soared about 11% to reach a new record high Friday after the firm reported its strongest cloud growth since 2022 – easing investor fears that industry giants have been overspending on AI.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq had soared 1.2% Friday morning as of about 10:50 a.m. ET, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Averaged jumped 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively.
On Thursday, investors sent shares in Meta and Microsoft sliding about 12% and 3%, respectively, after both companies announced plans to hike capital expenditures on AI.
Major stock indexes are still set to the end the week higher.
The Dow and Nasdaq are on track for their longest streaks of monthly gains since January 2018.
Amazon on Thursday revealed it had notched its fastest cloud-computing growth since 2022 and announced plans to raise its data-center capacity.
Revenue in its cloud unit jumped 20.2% in the most recent quarter – beating Wall Street estimates of 18.1%. The company is currently the leading provider of cloud infrastructure tech.
“We continue to see strong demand in AI and core infrastructure, and we’ve been focused on accelerating capacity – adding more than 3.8 gigawatts in the past 12 months,” CEO Andy Jassy said Thursday.
It reported earnings per share of $1.95, above estimates of $1.57, and revenue of $180.17 billion, beating expectations of $177.8 billion.
For the current quarter, Amazon said it expects to bring in sales of $206 billion to $213 billion, above what analysts were expecting.
It also expects operating income of between $21 billion and $26 billion, compared to estimates of $23.8 billion.
Like other tech giants this week, Amazon hiked its planned capital expenditures for this year.
It now expects to spend $125 billion in 2025 – up from $118 billion. The company plans to spend even more next year.
Just this week, the firm launched Project Rainier, an $11 billion data center in rural Indiana.
But Amazon has been focused on cutting costs in other areas, launching a round of 14,000 job cuts this week.
In total, the Seattle-based company is reportedly planning to slash 30,000 corporate jobs – or about 9% of its global office workforce – over the coming weeks.
During an earnings call Thursday, Jassy said the layoffs were not “financially driven,” but rather a “culture” move as the firm aims to cut down on bureaucracy.
Apple on Thursday also reported upbeat quarterly earnings and a strong forecast for December.
While the shares initially jumped Friday morning, they later fell about 0.3% since its sales and revenue in China — one of the company’s largest markets — missed expectations.
However, it reported earnings per share of $1.85, above estimates of $1.77, and revenue of $102.47 billion, beating expectations of $102.24 billion.
The company expects revenue to soar 10% to 12% in the holiday quarter – well above Wall Street estimates of 6%, said Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh.
A “double-digit” increase in iPhone sales from the previous year is expected to lead the revenue beat, he added.
That’s thanks to an “off the chart” global response to Apple’s new iPhone 17 lineup, CEO Tim Cook said, adding that store traffic is up significantly on a yearly basis.
In the most recent quarter, Apple reported $27.46 billion in net income, up from $14.29 billion in the same period last year. A one-time tax charge pushed last year’s figure lower.
For fiscal year 2025, Apple reported $416 billion in total revenue – up 6% from the previous year.
Sales in the most recent quarter jumped 8% from the same time last year.
Total iPhone revenue jumped 6% to $49.03 billion. The new iPhone 17 models went on sale on Sept. 19, so only about a week of these sales were included in the quarterly earnings report.
Analysts had expected $50.19 billion in iPhone sales. Cook said the miss was because several models were affected by supply constraints.
The company’s iPad business came in flat, with $6.95 billion in sales.
Services – which includes iCloud and Apple Music subscriptions, App Store charges and warranties for hardware – rose 15% to $24.97 billion in sales.
Its “Other Products” category, which includes Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro, dipped slightly to $9.04 billion in sales.
Its Mac business also jumped 13% to $8.72 billion in sales.
Cook said the company had not hiked prices due to tariffs. Instead, Apple is “just absorbing the tariffs in gross margin.”
A gross margin of 47.2% beat estimates of 46.4%.
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