In today's issue:
- We go through the earnings reports from the Big Four tech companies, most of which saw revenue increases despite a chaotic Q2 in the middle of a global pandemic. (Check out yesterday's rundown of Wednesday's Congressional hearings featuring the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.)
- Google reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline.
- Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's U.S. operations from Chinese company ByteDance.
- Dunkin' Donuts will close 8% of its U.S. stores, about 800 locations.
Yesterday, we asked which tech CEO you thought had the best answers in Wednesday's hearings. The results are in:
- 18.9% said Apple CEO Tim Cook
- 17.2% said Amazon's Jeff Bezos
- 8.9% said Sundar Pichai of Google
- Another 7.8% answered Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg
- And 47.2% of respondents didn't watch any of the hearings at all.
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Michael
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DJI |
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NASDAQ |
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S&P 500 |
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*As of 2:00 p.m. ET.
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Apple stock ($AAPL) opened at $409 per share today, a new all-time high, and up 6.5% from yesterday following its Q2 earnings showing revenue of $59.7b, an increase of 11% from Q2 2019. Apple's $2.58 earnings per share beat analyst estimates of $2.08, and its $59.7b in revenue beat estimates of $52.5b. Apple reported $11.2b in net income.
Apple revenue by each product line:
- iPhone: $26.4b (44% of total revenue)
- Services: $13.2b (22%)
- Mac: $7.1b (12%)
- iPad: $6.6b (11%)
- Other products: $6.5b (11%)
More:
- In August 2018, Apple became the first company ever to be worth at least $1T in market capitalization and is now on its way to becoming the first company to be worth $2T. Its current market capitalization hit an all-time high today of $1.78T.
- This comes after Apple was forced to temporarily close a majority of its U.S. stores, and pivot from in-store sales to work-from-home sales support for many of its employees. Apple reported $193.82b in cash reserves.
- Apple announced a four-for-one stock split, its fifth stock split ever, to make the stock accessible to more investors. Each Apple shareholder will get three additional shares for every share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on Aug. 31, 2020.
- Apple confirmed its new iPhone models would launch a few weeks later than they typically do. The exact launch date was undisclosed, but Apple usually launches its iPhones in late September.
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Amazon reported Q2 2020 revenue of $89b, up 40% from last year's $63b for the same period. Amazon's net profit stood at $5.2b, up 100% YoY from $2.6b during Q2 2019. The company's North America sales grew 43% YoY, and its cloud offering AWS grew 29% during Q2 2020.
More:
- Amazon's online grocery sales tripled during the last quarter. The company's delivery capacity increased by 160%, and Amazon tripled its grocery pickup locations.
- AWS's 29% growth rate has decreased when compared to 33% in the first quarter. Microsoft Azure's growth rate in Q2, for comparison, was 47% compared to 59% in Q1 2020; Google Cloud's growth rate in Q2 was 43%, down from 52% in Q1 2020.
- During Q1 2020's earnings call, Jeff Bezos said: "If you're a shareowner in Amazon, you may want to take a seat, because we're not thinking small" and indicated that in Q2 2020, the company could incur a loss of ~$1.5b, as Amazon expected to spend a majority of its profit in COVID-19 related expenses.
- Amazon spent $4b on COVID-19 related expenses in Q2 2020.
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Google's ($GOOGL) parent company Alphabet reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline in its Q2 earnings report yesterday, though its $38.3b in revenue did beat analyst estimates of $37.37b. Google Advertising revenue across the board declined by 8% to $29.9b. Google Search ad revenue dropped 10%, though YouTube ad revenue grew 6%.
More:
- Google earnings per share fell 29% YoY to $10.13 per share, down from $14.21 a share in Q2 2019. Analysts had predicted earnings to be at $8.21 per share.
- Google's total revenue was down 2% from Q2 2019, when it surged 19% from Q2 2018. Google was the only one of the big four tech companies that posted earnings yesterday to have declining revenue.
- Google Cloud revenue grew 43% YoY, the best performing product it had in terms of growth.
- Google also teased that its new phone, the Pixel 4a, might be unveiled on Aug. 3.
- It was also announced yesterday that Google would face an EU antitrust investigation over its $2.1b acquisition of FitBit back in November. Google was hit with a $1.7b antitrust fine in March, its third antitrust fine from the EU. The EU has now fined the company nearly $10b for antitrust violations since 2017.
- Yesterday, Australia announced it would require Google and Facebook to pay Australian media companies for news content it uses in a royalty style agreement. It's the first requirement of its kind. We wrote about the conflict last month in Inside Business here.
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Facebook ($FB) reported $18.7b in revenue in Q2 2020, up ~11% YoY from $16.9b. Despite beating analysts' $17.34b expectations, Facebook's growth rate declined from previous YoY jumps of ~25% or more. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors Thursday that engagement on the platform had increased during the pandemic and that large advertisers leaving Facebook were not devastating to its business. See investor materials here and listen to the full earnings call here.
Facebook revenue, last five quarters:
Q2 2020: $18.7b
Q1 2020: $17.7b
Q4 2019: $21.1b
Q3 2019: $17.7b
Q2 2019: $16.9b
More:
- Facebook's profits in Q2 were up 98% YoY to $5.2b, exceeding expectations of $3.9b.
- 2.47 billion people globally use at least one Facebook app (which includes Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp) every day. (tweet this)
- The company said it had 2.7 billion monthly active users, up 12% YoY.
- Facebook stock jumped ~7% in early trading. As of this writing, it's trading at $252.68 with a market cap of $720.48b.
- The company warned investors that further economic damage from the pandemic or long-term advertiser boycotts could ultimately hinder Facebook's profits.
- Facebook and Google rely primarily on ad revenue, and early estimates suggested the two companies combined could see $44b in lost ad revenue in 2020.

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Let us know your thoughts...
Of the big four tech stocks that released earnings, which one would you be most likely to buy today?
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Productivity Tool of the Day: Remote teams frequently work across multiple time zones, and finding meeting times that work for San Francisco, New York, London, and Seoul can be as time-consuming as the meeting itself. Moleskine Studio developed Overlap, a simple, free tool that organizes the time zones of all your team members to make scheduling easier. Overlap is a free download on the App Store.
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Series A funding tracker: In the last seven days, a total of 34 companies raised Series A funding for a total of $437.7m. Healthcare accounted for 46%, and cybersecurity accounted for 13% of the investment.
Top three companies:
- Bright Peak Therapeutics synthesize and optimize natural protein that could be used in cancer treatment - raised $35m from Versant Ventures
- MBX Biosciences creates therapies for rare endocrine diseases - raised $34.6m in a funding round led by Frazier Healthcare Partners
- Enthera develops treatment for autoimmune disorders - raised $32.8m in the funding round led by Sofinnova Partners and AbbVie Biotech Ventures



Get more funding updates in our Inside VC newsletter
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Dunkin' Donuts is closing 800 U.S. stores, roughly 8% of its locations. Dunkin' told investors on its Q2 earnings call that the stores are in areas with poor sales and only represent about 2% of its overall sales. About half of the closures will be locations inside Speedway convenience stores, a chain with ~4,000 locations in the Midwest and East Coast.
More:
- Dunkin's revenue fell 20% in Q2. Fewer customers are going to Dunkin' locations during the pandemic, though the company said spend per transaction has increased.
- Dunkin' said it may also close 350 locations outside the U.S. With ~13,000 locations worldwide, this represents less than 9% of the total.
- Dunkin' announced it will require all customers to wear face masks starting Aug. 5. Earlier this week, controversial pastor Greg Locke uploaded a video where he said he threatened to kick the teeth out of a Dunkin' Donuts employee who asked him to wear a mask.
- Dunkin' also announced new free offerings for its member program. Dunkin' Perks Members can get a free coffee on the first three Mondays in August with a food purchase or a free donut on the first three Fridays in August with a beverage purchase.
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QUICK HITS
- Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok U.S. from Chinese company ByetDance. This comes following reports that President Trump is going to order ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations of TikTok to an American company. This is a developing story.
- Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline will receive $2.1b from the U.S. government to fund the development and production of its coronavirus vaccine candidate, though initial clinical trials aren't set to start until September. Check out our previous story on "Operation Warp Speed" and U.S. funding of vaccine candidates.
- The additional $600/week federal unemployment benefit expires today with Republicans and Democrats still far apart on a new stimulus bill that could extend or replace it.
- Nvidia is seeking to purchase chip-maker Arm from SoftBank for more than $32b in a cash-and-stock deal.
- Twitter permanently suspended former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke for "repeated violations of the Twitter rules on hateful conduct."
- CEOs and CFOs talk the winners and losers of the office of the future.*
*This is sponsored content.
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Michael Tant is a Business Researcher at Inside. He's passionate about economics, technology, crypto, and investing.
Nataraajan Arulolie is a Business Researcher at Inside and is keen on telling stories through data.
Jonathan Harris is a writer for Inside.com. Previously, he wrote for The Huffington Post, TakePart.com, and the YouTube channel What’s Trending.
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Editor
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Sheena Vasani is a journalist, passionate techie, and UC Berkeley alumna who writes Inside Dev. She started her coding journey at Dev Bootcamp and Thinkful, and is proficient in Javascript and Ruby. In her free time, she runs a project dedicated to breaking mental health stigmas in South Asian communities. She's also currently working on gathering stories about people transcending divides for a new project, A Human First.
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