Microsoft, Apple and Google record impressive quarterly profits as lockdowns lift

Apple, Google and Microsoft have all posted incredibly strong quarterly numbers overnight. All three enjoyed strong growth as the world slowly exits pandemic based lockdown.

Apple made $21.7 billion profit for the period from April to June, which represents the best fiscal third quarter in its entire history, and up 93% year-on-year. 

Total revenue for the period was $81.4 billion, and as you might imagine from that kind of number, sales in every product group were up, but the iPhone 12 was the standout product, with revenue growing 50% on this time last year. Almost as impressive was the fast growing services segment, which rose 33% to hit $17.5 billion in revenue.

But it wasn’t just Apple sounding triumphant on calls to investors. Google’s parent company Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue of $61.8 billion, which is up 62% on the same period 12 months ago. Profit wasn’t too far behind Apple at £18.5 billion, which is more than double the figure posted a year ago. 

While Alphabet covers a lot of companies, the majority of its money continues to come from search and advertising, though both Google Cloud and the ‘Other Bets’ division also saw increasing revenue too.

Finally, Microsoft was also beating expectations with revenues of $46.2 billion – a 21% rise on this time last year. More impressively, however, profits rose 47% to hit $16.5 billion. No huge surprises in what was driving this: Intelligent Cloud grew 30% year-on-year, while the business apps category (Office, LinkedIn, etc.) also jumped up 25%. The personal computing group, which includes the likes of Windows and Xbox, increased 9% overall, but did see Surface business drop 20%.

While the companies’ various cloud and software services will have thrived during lockdown while remote working was required, hardware sales will likely have benefited from the gradual reopening of physical stores. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see what the trends are for the next quarter as more of the world – hopefully – returns to normal.