Earnings season was front-and-center this week, with two major tech companies seeing their stocks make big moves after their earnings reports. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) have risen about 9% and 3.4% since they reported their latest quarterly results this week, respectively.
Beyond earnings, another interesting story from tech this week was an initial public offering from e-signature and cloud-based document company Docusign (NASDAQ:DOCU), which saw its shares rise 37% on Friday.
Facebook’s torrid growth continues
Social network Facebook has been under intense scrutiny lately. After stating in March that a developer mishandled millions of users’ data, regulators, investors, and advertisers have expressed some concern about the company’s ability to protect user privacy.
But Zuckerberg & Co. still managed to impress this week. Facebook reported revenue and net income of $11.8 billion and $5.0 billion, up from $7.9 billion and $3.1 billion in the year-ago quarter. This growth was driven by a 50% year-over-year increase in Facebook’s advertising revenue — an acceleration from Facebook’s 49% year-over-year growth in advertising revenue in its fourth quarter.
This strong growth meant Facebook easily beat analyst expectations. The social network reported earnings per share of $1.69. On average, analysts were expecting EPS of $1.35.
Amazon crushes estimates
Amazon similarly crushed analyst estimates for its first quarter. The company reported first-quarter revenue and earnings per share of $51 billion and $3.27, respectively. On average, analysts were expecting revenue of $49.9 billion and earnings per share of $1.27.
As usual, Amazon’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), saw its revenue and operating income surge. The important segment’s revenue increased 49% year over year to $5.4 billion, marking AWS’ second quarter in a row of accelerating year-over-year revenue growth. AWS operating income surged 46% year over year. This meant AWS operating income accounted for a whopping 73% of total operating income.
“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about the segment. “As a result, the AWS services are by far the most evolved and most functionality-rich. AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day. That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row.”
Docusign soars
Docusign’s publicly traded shares started off with a bang this week, soaring 37% on Friday after going public at a price of $29. The stock’s gain gave the company a market capitalization of more than $6 billion.
It’s no surprise that investors piled on the stock. The company has seen significant growth recently, with surging revenue and narrowing losses. In the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2018 revenue surged 36% year over year. In the same timeframe, Docusign’s net loss narrowed from $115 million in the previous year to $52 million. In addition, Docusign is already cash-flow positive and is generating about 17% of its revenue from outside of the U.S.
