Three industry giants are set to report their financial performance this week in a busy time for technology earnings, with eBay on Wednesday and Amazon and Alphabet on Thursday.
On the heels of the holiday shopping season, commentary from these major retailers and advertisers could be clues on the state of consumer spending, a top Internet analyst told CNBC Monday.
"Each of these companies has strong secular growth drivers, whether it's in retail or media advertising and enterprise technology," Colin Sebastian, Internet analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., said Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "But more specifically around the short term, Q4 is a big seasonal ramp for all of these companies."
So what should investors expect?
EBay is expected to report a 52 percent decline in revenues year on year, to $2.1 billion, and a 41 percent decline in earnings per share, to 40 cents, according to estimates by Thomson. The EPS drop reflects a July stock-split related to the Paypal spinoff.
Analysts predict Amazon will post revenue growth of 21 percent to $24.9 billion and a loss of 12 cents per share. And Alphabet is predicted to post a 15 percent year-on-year decline in revenue to $35.7 billion, and a 7 percent decline in earnings per share, to $0.52.
But despite the usual volatility in quarterly earnings, Sebastian said he still sees the technology giants as buying opportunities with plenty of potential for future growth.
"If we look at ecommerce, if we look at social media or online advertising spend, we're seeing very healthy rates of growth in spite of some lingering issues within the core consumer market," Sebastian said.
Take Amazon, for example. Though the company continues to widen it's scope, Wall Street keeps upping the ante on their expectations, too, Sebastian said. Traditionally known for it's consumer-oriented e-tailing, Amazon has recently promoted itself as a leader in the enterprise computing space, thanks in part to a Amazon Web Services conference earlier this month.
"Where Amazon sits in retail, they are still 20 percent the size of Wal-Mart, which tells you that there is still massive precedent for ongoing growth in retail," Sebastian said. "But even in enterprise technology with web services, this is still a $3 billion-$4 billion market opportunity for Amazon, and that's certainly a big part of the market cap appreciation for Amazon. And then you have media, you have transportation and logistics, and certainly other markets that are still left for disruption."
Alphabet, traditionally known as a search engine and advertising company, is also expanding beyond its core business. The new reporting structure under Alphabet should provide accountability to how Google-generated cash is spent on so-called "moon-shot" projects like fiber-optics and smart-home technology.
"I think what we'll end up concluding is that desktop search is not as large for Google in terms of revenues as is actually embedded in the stock," Sebastian said. "So we do see upside potential left in Google from those disclosures."
EBay, by comparison, limps behind its competitors, having recently spun-off PayPal.
"I think eBay still has an opportunity as a value stock for investors," Sebastian said. "I think near term, business fundamentals are still seeing a bit of a headwind in terms of growth, especially relative to [its] competitors."
Disclosures: This analyst has no conflicts of interest to report.