Apple, Alphabet miss Wall Street expectations

STORY: It was a bleak earnings day for some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

In results reported on Thursday, Apple missed profits expectations for the first time since 2016.

Sales fell 5% to $117 billion, down in every part of the world last quarter.

Part of the problem: weak iPhone sales.

COVID lockdowns in China disrupted production.

Demand fell in China, too… and overall, iPhone sales are down around 8% compared to the year before.

Shares in the tech giant fell 5% after the results came out.

It was a slightly rosier picture at Amazon.

Its holiday revenue beat expectations, with early holiday shopping sales helping, to a point.

Still, the boost may be short-lived.

Amazon is already warning it may not make any profit at all this quarter.

It doesn’t think layoffs will do enough to blunt the impact of consumer clampdowns on spending.

Facing high inflation and an uncertain economy, CEO Andy Jassy wants to slash costs.

It’s a similar story at Google parent Alphabet, where chief executive Sundar Pichai said the company was on a journey to “re-engineer” its cost structure.

Both echoed comments from Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg the day - before who placed emphasis on “cost efficiencies.”

Alphabet also fell short of profit and revenue expectations.

Overall, Alphabet's net income fell to $13.62 billion from $20.64 billion a year earlier.

Shares there were down about 4 percent in after-hours trading.

The stock lost about 40 percent of its value last year.

Alphabet has also announced plans to slash 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of its overall workforce.

Apple is one of the few large tech firms that hasn’t announced big layoffs so far.