Amazon crushes earnings, Apple vs. The World ends with decisive victory for Apple

Two of the most consumer-facing members of the Magnificent 7 released earnings last night, and it seems like they’re doing pretty swell.

First out of the gate was Amazon, which had a quarter for the record books:

The company posted $180.2 billion in sales for Q3, growing 13% from the same quarter a year earlier.

Earnings per share came in at $1.95, blowing past analysts’ expectations of $1.57.

Amazon’s AWS cloud business saw revenue jump 20% year on year to $33 billion, powered by huge demand for AI.

Amazon added 3.8 gigawatts of computing capacity, advertising revenue was up 24% year on year, and subscription revenue was up 11% year on year.

Meanwhile, down the coast in Cupertino, the numbers out of Apple were less of a bonanza but left Wall Street admiring how it managed to pull off its top-line numbers with the myriad forces working against it.

The company’s iPhone sales were $49 billion, shy of the analyst consensus forecast of $50.1 billion.

China sales were a disappointing $14.5 billion, below analysts’ expectation of $15.5 billion.

While it’s been a laggard in AI, Apple’s Services division saw revenue of $28.8 billion, slightly above the Street’s $28.2 billion.

And despite all that, the company pulled a rabbit out of a hat: revenue for the fourth quarter was $102.5 billion, slightly above the $102.2 billion analysts had predicted. A win is a win!

The Takeaway

Amazon gave guidance for fourth-quarter sales between $206 billion and $213 billion, compared with estimates of $208.4 billion. Operating income was forecast at $21 billion to $26 billion, topping Wall Street’s expectation of $19.73 billion. As for Apple, its stock was recently propelled above a $4 trillion market cap, in part by leading indicators that suggested iPhone 17 sales were ahead of last year’s model.

The real test for both then? Ho- Ho- How are they going to do in the winner-take-all holiday season?