Google, Apple, Amazon give investors reason to fret as Q4 profits drop

Wall Street had its eyes on Friday on big tech after some of the biggest companies in the world posted lackluster quarterly financial performances.

That included Apple Inc. The company posted its first quarterly revenue drop in nearly four years after pandemic-driven restrictions on its China factories curtailed sales of the latest iPhone during the holiday season.

Amazon reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter profits, but its revenue beat expectations boosted by sales in its cloud-computing unit AWS, which is also seeing a slow-down in growth.

Google's parent company Alphabet posted a lower profit and a small revenue increase for last year's fourth quarter, as a decline in online ad spending and competition from rivals weigh on the search giant.

While overall revenue grew, advertising revenue fell by nearly 4 per cent and revenue at YouTube declined 8 per cent year-over-year.

Amazon ended on Friday down 8.4 per cent and Alphabet lost 2.8 per cent. Apple bounced back, finishing the day up 2.4 per cent.