[imagesource: Samantha Lee/Business Insider]

Jeff Bezos is on track to become the first trillionaire in the world, with 2026 slated as the year he’ll tick over that mark.

Let that sink in – a billion is a thousand million, and a trillion is a thousand billion.

There are 12 zeroes in a trillion.

It’s actually too much wealth to wrap one’s head around, especially when you consider the sheer scale of one single billion.

Amazon has certainly enjoyed a strong 2020, with online shopping through the roof amidst a global pandemic, reports the Financial Times:

Locked-down shoppers drove sales 40 per cent higher, year-on-year, to $88.9bn, helping the company record $5.2bn in net income for the three months to the end of June.

That was double what it earned in the same period last year, far higher than analysts’ expectations and an all-time quarterly record for the ecommerce group.

Amazon shares were up more than 5 per cent in after-hours trading, with the company valued at $1.5tn based on its closing price.

Demand was so high that Amazon hired an additional 175 000 employees during the pandemic, with costs associated with COVID-19 reaching $4 billion for the period.

It was also a decent quarter for Facebook, reports FT:

Facebook posted double-digit revenue growth despite headwinds from the coronavirus pandemic, but warned that a boycott of its advertising services would impact growth in the current quarter.

Revenues in the three month to the end of June — the majority of which comes from advertising — rose 11 per cent year-on-year to $18.7bn.

This was well above analyst expectations of $17.4bn, as the company won new users and boosted engagement during shelter-in-place restrictions.

Those numbers aren’t to be scoffed at, but results for the quarter do represent the slowest pace of growth since Facebook was publicly listed back in May 2012.

Moving on to Apple, with the figures below via MyBroadband:

Apple’s financial results for the quarter also showed good signs, as quarterly revenue increased by 11% to $59.7 billion.

Net income also increased from $10 billion in the same period last year, to $11.25 billion this year.

This was driven by an increase in net sales to $59.69 billion for the quarter, compared to $53.81 billion for the same period last year.

Out of tech’s ‘big four’, as they are often dubbed, only Alphabet, the parent company of Google, showed a year-on-year decrease to its net income, with the quarter’s $6,96 billion figure down from $9,95 billion for the same period last year.

That quarterly figure is actually higher than most Wall Street expectations, with the drop in earnings due in large part to shrinking advertising budgets.

Google’s core search and ad revenue dropped by almost 10% when compared to the same report last year, and YouTube ad revenue growth decelerated.

I’m sure they’ll be just fine in the long run.

[sources:ft&ft&mybb]