The income and benefits of technological giants increased strongly in the first quarter of 2025 despite the deterioration of the economy of the United States and the uncertainties generated by the beginning of the commercial war decreed by Donald Trump against the entire world. Although the bulk of the tariff rise occurred in April, since February there were already additional imports to imports. For now, they have not stopped the triumphal march of the great technological ones. Of course, the commercial war bill will begin to be clearly noticed in the second quarter.
Alphabet’s added benefit, Apple, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon amounted to 118,915 million dollars between January and March, 29.2% more than in the same period of the previous year. Billing increased 9.9%, to 453,640 million dollars (about 402,000 million euros, to the current exchange rate). Both income and benefits marked records for a first quarter.
Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft do not depend just on the trade of goods, so they are almost immune to the direct effects of the commercial war. Amazon and Apple are exposed to the impact of tariffs, but in the first quarter they barely noticed it. The electronic commerce giant continued to grow strongly, while Apple benefited from customers advanced purchases for fear of price increases derived from the imposition of tariffs.
Ultimately, the five companies can be affected by a brake of the economy. For now, however, the demand for cloud computing, computer solutions and devices remains strong for the pull of artificial intelligence. At the time, digital advertising continued to grow strongly.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, warned this Thursday in the presentation of the results to the analysts that the commercial war will have an impact of 900 million dollars on the costs of the company in the current quarter and implied that the impact could be greater in successive quarters. That, despite the fact that Trump exempted electronic products such as telephones, computers and tablets of the bulk of tariffs to desire China, where Apple concentrates its production. The company is diverting part of the manufacture of India and Vietnam to reduce its dependence on the Asian giant as a supply source.
In the first quarter, Apple’s sales accelerated and grew 5.1%, to 95,359 million dollars. The benefit increased 4.8%, to 24,780 million. In addition to the pull of the service business, the data suggest that customers anticipated their purchases for the fear that the commercial war will raise prices. While income grew only 1% in Europe and fell 2% in China, in America (where the bulk of the business is concentrated in the United States) the turnover of the billing was 8%, which endorses that thesis. In its results note, the company mentioned as risks and uncertainties the “commercial disputes and other international disputes”, which did not appear the previous quarter.
Likewise, Amazon said the results could be affected by “tariff and commercial policies”, which did not mention the previous quarter. “Obviously, none of us knows exactly where tariffs or when,” said Andy Jassy, president and CEO, at the conference with analysts. “We have not yet seen any attenuation of the demand. To some extent, we have observed an increase in purchases in some categories, which could indicate a previous supply to the possible impact of the tariffs,” he added, in line with what happened to Apple.
In the first quarter, Amazon sales grew 9%, up to 155,667 million dollars, and the benefit shot 64%, to 17,127 million. The company expects its income to grow between 7% and 11% in the second quarter, but sees the risk of the operational result from falling.
Alphabet, the Google group, stands out as a leading leader for benefits, with 34,540 million dollars (+46%), after increasing their income by 12%, up to 90,234 million. At the good march of digital advertising and Google Cloud, its cloud computing division joined extraordinary latent surplus value of about 8,000 million dollars derived from the market value of its participation in Spacex, the space company founded and directed by Elon Musk, of which the technological giant is a minority shareholder.
In the conference with Alphabet analysts there was much talk about artificial intelligence, but tariffs or trade were not mentioned, as the company’s business is basically digital. And neither was reference referred to economic deterioration. Philipp Schindler, executive vice president, said the group has “a lot of experience in managing situations of uncertainty.”
“We are well prepared to face macroeconomic uncertainty,” said Mark Zuckerberg. Although the bet of the founder and goal chief for Metaverso continues to be a fiasco, the advertising business of its social networks is winding wind. The company uses artificial intelligence for users to spend more time hooked on Facebook and Instagram and to optimize advertising. The first quarter revenues increased by 16%, to 42,314 million dollars, and the benefit shot 34.6%, to 16,644 million.
Goal is investing strongly in data centers to develop its commitment to new technology and the main concern for tariffs that their managers expressed to analysts is because of the risk of increasing the costs of these investments. There were also mentions without specifying the potential impact of uncertainty on your advertising business.
The results most applauded by the market were those of Microsoft, whose income grew 13%, up to 70,066 million dollars, and the benefits, 18%, to 25,824 million, especially for the acceleration of the growth of its cloud computing division, Azure, associated with artificial intelligence, up to a rate of 33%. Satya Nadella, his CEO, did not talk about the commercial war.
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