Seven months into the pandemic and just days before the next presidential election, the world's four biggest tech companies announced their quarterly earnings.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google detailed their earnings Thursday afternoon within about 30 minutes of one another by dropping reports ahead of their respective earnings calls.
Google's call was at 4:30 p.m. EDT, while Apple and Facebook are expected at 5 p.m. EDT. Amazon's will start at 5:30 p.m. EDT.
Amazon came out on top as net sales increased 37 percent to $96.1 billion. The company's net income tripled to $6.3 billion.
Ahead of the earnings releases, USA Today had forecast Amazon would be Thursday's biggest winner, citing predictions by an analyst with Wedbush Securities. The firm said the company is considered "the poster child of beneficiary from the COVID environment."
Back in April, Amazon was alongside Netflix as a winner of the stay-at-home economy. More products than ever were purchased from Amazon during the period of March 30 through June 30 -- the first months of the pandemic.
“Offering jobs with industry-leading pay and great healthcare, including to entry-level and front-line employees, is even more meaningful in a time like this, and we’re proud to have created over 400,000 jobs this year alone," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said ahead of the company's call.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported $46.17 billion in revenue, which is up 12 percent year over year. Net income for the company increased 59 percent to $11.25 billion. YouTube, owned by Google, also saw a 32 percent jump in ad revenue to $5.04 billion.
Facebook reported a 22 percent year over year increase with revenue at $21.47 billion. Its net income climbed 29 percent to $7.85 billion.
On average for September 2020, Facebook averaged 1.82 billion daily active users and monthly active users were 2.74 billion as of Sept. 30, 2020 -- both an increase of 12 percent year over year.
Apple on Thursday reported a record $64.7 billion in revenue the quarter. The company said international sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter's revenue.
However, Apple said iPhone sales took a hit because of a delayed release of the new iPhone 12 models.
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are considered the four tech titans of the industry and together account for $5.3 trillion in market cap. That's almost one-fifth of the S&P 500, according to Barron's.
Big tech economic victories obviously have a huge impact on the markets, but they can also be impacted by the upcoming election, experts say. In a weekend note to clients, Bank of America analyst Justin Post said a Joe Biden victory could slow tech industry progress next year, MSNBC reported.
And, according to Forbes, a "blue wave" in the White House and in Congress could mean a bigger push for heightened regulation in big tech, including calling for companies to be broken up.
The earnings announcements come a day after the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter were scolded by Republicans at a Senate hearing Wednesday for alleged anti-conservative bias on their social media platforms. They also received a warning about coming restrictions from Congress.
The hearing, titled "Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?" related to the 1996 law that gives tech giants protection from being liable for what their users do on their platforms and how the companies moderate the content.
In May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order challenging the protections under the telecommunications law. That came two days after Twitter put fact check labels on some of the president's posts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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