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Apple and Facebook break all sales records

2021-05-02T04:52:56.168Z


The corona pandemic has undoubtedly promoted the retreat into virtual worlds. Tech companies like Facebook and Apple benefited from this - and how.


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iPhone Owners: Unrestrained Growth

Photo: ALY SONG / REUTERS

Apple started this year with figures that could only be achieved in the Christmas season in the past.

The iPhone group increased sales year-on-year by 54 percent to 89.6 billion dollars.

At $ 23.6 billion, profits were more than twice as high as Apple announced after the US market closed on Wednesday.

The iPhone played the leading role once again, bringing in almost $ 48 billion in sales - almost two-thirds more than a year ago. But also with the Mac computers there was a solid increase of 70 percent to 9.1 billion dollars in sales. Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, computers have been in greater demand because people work and learn more from home. This also contributed to the sales increase of 79 percent to $ 7.8 billion for iPad tablets. Apple has not given any sales figures for the devices for a number of years.

Facebook's sales also continue to grow unabated.

In the past quarter, sales of the world's largest online network rose 48 percent year-on-year to almost $ 26.2 billion, and profits from $ 4.9 to 9.5 billion.

The number of users who visit Facebook at least once a month grew by a good 50 million to 2.85 billion within three months.

Almost 1.9 billion use the platform every day, as Facebook announced after the US market closed on Wednesday.

Criticism of Apple

Facebook mainly earns its money through advertising, which mainly appears in the users' news feed.

In the past quarter, 12 percent more ads were served - and their average price rose 30 percent year-over-year.

The online network reiterated the criticism of Apple's tightened privacy protection measures on the iPhone.

Apps now have to obtain express permission from users if they want to track their behavior across different services and websites for advertising purposes.

This is an important way for Facebook to collect information to personalize advertising.

At the same time, Facebook is reaping the fruits of years of investment in the virtual reality business, where users can immerse themselves in digital worlds with special glasses.

Other revenue besides advertising rose to $ 732 million from $ 297 million a year earlier - largely thanks to increased sales of the Quest 2 VR glasses.

Virtual world as the future

In a conference call with analysts, Zuckerberg was convinced that VR and AR will be the next computer platform.

So far, Facebook has had to be content with a web browser or smartphone apps.

In future computer environments, however, you will actually have the feeling of being in one place with someone else.

"That will make a lot of experiences possible that we have always wanted to develop." Facebook will continue to invest heavily in the technology.

Zuckerberg also affirmed the goal of expanding Facebook into an e-commerce platform - even if that would be a task for several years.

Investors let the Facebook share rise in after-hours trading by a good six percent, the Apple share temporarily quoted more than three percent above the previous day's value.

mik / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-05-02

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