Tuesdata: How big tech stacks up after reporting season

Welcome to Tuesdata, our weekly look into the most interesting data from the media and marketing industry.

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A few weeks ago we dedicated Tuesdata to how the holding companies stacked up after the majority of them had reported their first half 2022 results. 

This week we’re going to apply similar methodology to big tech. There could be arguments as to who exactly should be included in the category of big tech, but for this example we will use the big four.

That is Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Amazon and Microsoft. For interest, we will also include the other increasingly important player in terms of advertising (and privacy), Apple. 

Apple and CEO Tim Cook are becoming bigger players in the advertising space for numerous reasons

We’ll provide a net income comparison chart that includes H1 2021 and H1 2022 for all five businesses and we will pull out advertising business revenue or statistics where possible.

Not all include exact revenue figures for their advertising businesses in their reports but mentions are becoming increasingly key to the businesses.

Big tech, both the big four and beyond, has been a particular focus of the media lately as a large amount of significant tech companies see drops in their advertising revenue and look to cut staff. 

The current economic struggles are not unique to big tech. The majority of the market, including those listed on our own Unmade Index, have shed significant value since the beginning of the year as we entered a substantial market downturn.

What it shows is that technology, often seen as a licence to print money, isn’t immune to significant economic struggles. 

Even the largest and most talked about technology companies including Microsoft, Twitter, PayPal and Netflix have laid off staff. The platform Unmade is published on, Substack, recently shed 14% of its people.

How are the big four performing after the latest reports were released a little over a month ago? We’ll take a closer look below.