amazoncom inc amzn reported blowout profits topping sales estimates and issuing strong guidance the latest results included the titans biggest earnings beat since its 2020s fourth quarter as it successfully returned to doubledigit growth unsurprisingly amazon stock rose went up more than 10 in extended trading rising 52 year to date apple inc aapl who also reported its fiscal third quarter results also topped both top and bottomline estimates thanks to its service business but this was overshadowed third consecutive quarter of revenue declines with its stock declining 25 afterhours upon the results amazon generated 1344 billion in revenue that grew 11 yoy and resulted in a net income of 67 billion or 65 cents a share what a difference compared to 2022s comparable quarter when amazon made a loss of 2 billion or 20 cents a share owed to its markup of ev startup rivian automotive rivn amazon did an efficient job at cutting costs with global headcount falling 4 yoy to 146 million people as of the end of the reported quarter having cut 27000 jobs since last fall in largest layoffs since the companys inception aws growth stabilized as customers put cost management aside to focus on new workloads leading to a 12 in revenue to 221 billion that topped wall streets estimate of 218 billion still it was a deceleration compared to previous quarters 16 growth while also being the slowest growth rate since 2015 which is when amazon started disclosing cloud revenue during the reported quarter aws made 70 of the companys operating profit that amounted to 77 billion ceo andy jassy emphasized that although the companys big bet on ai still hasnt resulted in faster gains for aws prospects remain bright as the tech giant continues to experiment with the ecommerce shopping experience and using it to sum up customer feedback on products moreover jassy noted that generative ai releases strengthened the leadership position of its cloud business that competes with alphabet inc goog google and microsoft corporation msft advertising continues to boom with unit revenue skyrocketing 22 to 107 billion topping the 104 billion that wall street expected for the sake of comparison meta platforms inc meta reported a 11 rise in this business segment being its second consecutive quarterly increase after a brutal year that came after apple introduced privacy changes with google being far behind the two with only 32 revenue growth therefore as the slumping digital ad market shows signs of improvement amazons online advertising business is getting bigger according to insider intelligence amazon holds 73 of the worldwide digital ad market while alphabet owns 288 and meta 205 apple damaged meta with its 2021 ios privacy update by limiting its power to target ads as some companies and retailers shifted their ad budgets to platforms like amazon as a result amazons ad business expanded over the past year while metas core digital ad business shrank last year although its latest result showed meta is rebounding it is just not doing it at the cost of amazons share that keeps on growing fueled by the success of julys 48hour prime day discount event that amazon touted as its biggest ever sales for the undergoing quarter are now expected in the range between 138 billion and 143 billion which implies a growth rate between 9 and 13 amazon and apple wrapped up the big techs q2 reports while growth that mega tech companies reported remains below historical standards results show that they are rebounding after a tough year with costcontrol initiatives fueling profitability what these big tech reports all have in common is that they are going full speed ahead in the same direction towards a generative aipowered future disclaimer this content is for informational purposes only it is not intended as investing advice