Amazon Anticipates Slight Slowdown

Amazon reported a 24% increase in net sales to 35.7 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2017 on a constant currency basis. It forecast that sales will be between 35.25 billion and 37.75 billion dollars in the second quarter, which would mean year-on-year growth of between 16% and 24%. This guidance anticipates an unfavourable impact of approximately 720 million dollars or 240 basis points from movements in foreign exchange rates.  Sales in Amazon Web Services, the cloud business, rose 43% to 3.66 billion dollars in the first quarter. source: Amazon statement

Alphabet Enjoys Another Big Quarter

Alphabet reported a 24% year-on-year increase in revenues (on a constant currency basis) for the first quarter of 2017 to 24.75 billion US dollars. The growth was driven by a 53% increase in paid clicks on adverts hosted on Google properties, which more than compensated for a 21% fall in the price of these clicks.

As it focuses on the development of artificial intelligence, Alphabet's R&D spending rose 17% to 3.94 billion dollars in the quarter. Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet, said: "Headcount at the end of the quarter was 73,992, up 1,939 people from last quarter. ... Consistent with prior quarters, the vast majority of new hires were engineers and product managers. In terms of product areas, the most sizable head count growth was in Cloud, consistent with the priority we place on this business." Source: Google statement and Seeking Alpha transcript

Spain Gives Orange Growth

Orange said revenues rose 0.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017 to 10.1 billion euros, after rising 1% in the 4th quarter of 2016 (on a comparable basis), led by the Europe zone and in particular by strong growth in Spain. It added that fixed broadband revenues increased 6.3%, fuelled by growth in demand for fibre and TV content in France and Spain. Revenues from mobile services were broadly stable, slipping 0.2%. Source: Orange statement

Semiconductors Prop Up Samsung

Samsung Electronics reported a 2% year-on-year rise in total sales for the first quarter to 50.55 trillion Korean won (44.45 billion US dollars). A 40% leap in semiconductor revenues compensated for a 17% fall in mobile sales. However, Samsung said it expects smartphone sales and earnings to rise in 2017 on the back of the launch of the S8 model. Source: Samsung presentation

AT&T Feels Competitive Pressure

AT&T reported revenues for the first quarter of 39.4 billion US dollars, down almost 3% year-on-year. It blamed "record-low equipment sales" in wireless, adding that it is no longer providing consolidated revenue guidance primarily due to the unpredictability of wireless handset sales. However, entertainment and business solutions revenues also slipped downwards. Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO, described it as a "very competitive quarter." source: AT&T statement

China Mobile Sees Steady Growth

China Mobile reported a 4% year-on-year increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2017 to 184 billion yuan (26.7 billion US dollars). It also reported a 51% year-on-year rise in 4G customers to 568 million. source: China Mobile operating data

Many Europeans Lack Smartphones

Source: Statista

Facebook Messenger Tops 1.2 billion Users

Source: Statista

For more coverage of Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, please see my report Consumer Communications: Can Telcos Mount a Comeback? for STL Partners.

Device Market Growing Slowly

Source: Gartner statement