Apple and Amazon increased their focus with disappointing sales outlooks going into the year-end holidays. Both companies expect sales growth in the final quarter of the year to slow as inflation is affecting consumer spending. Apple stocks have increased, but stocks of Amazon have decrease on the news.
Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer of Amazon, said that they are realistic that there are various factors weighing on the wallets of people, and they are not quite sure how strong the current holiday spending will be compared to last year.
Amazon expects its fourth-quarter sales to increase only 2 percent to 8 percent from the same quarter year-ago, and the operating profit of the company can be as low as zero dollars. The Bank of America also noted that the holiday revenue outlook of Amazon was weak and by far the lowest on record.
Apple remain stable on its sales and is expecting sales to grow less than 8 percent seen in the third quarter of 2022 even though the fourth quarter of 2022 has an extra week. According to Apple, sales of Mac computers and services were also decreasing. Amazon and Apple are among the largest and can give investors insight into the economic trends.
