– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on April 28, Friday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
Amazon reported first-quarter sales and earnings that topped analyst estimates, as the company's e-commerce and cloud-computing businesses continued to take business from rivals.
Sales jumped 23 percent to $35.7 billion and earnings per share climbed to $1.48 from $1.07. Analysts expected sales of $35.3 billion and EPS of $1.12. The stock surged to $961.80 in extended trading after closing at a record $918.76.Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services is drawing more small businesses and large enterprises to its cloud platform. AWS sales increased 42 percent to $3.66 billion, even as the company slashed prices.
Investors are betting that new enhancements in artificial intelligence both in AWS and with consumer products like the Echo will mean more dollars flowing through Amazon's pipes.
[PATRICK MOORHEAD, President & Principal Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy] "they are going to have to keep investing on two front. First of all, internationally they lost 4.81 million dollars this quarter in international operations. If they wanna grow, because they have pretty much have the US all locked up. they are going to have to invest. And they are also trying to invest heavily to reduce their cost base by creating drones and actually creating their own airplane fleet, to reduce their reliance on domestic and international carriers."
The stock climbed 4.7 percent after hours.Alphabet managed to buck backlash over its ad platform in the first quarter, reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue on Thursday.
The company saw mobile search and ongoing strength in YouTube driving ad sales higher, while sales on Google Play, hardware and cloud grew substantially, said chief financial officer Ruth Porat.
Shares rose more than 4 percent after hours, as executives said more consumers are turning to smartphones for content - and for ads.
Another tech giant, Microsoft, shares fell after the company said it reported lower-than-expected revenue, amid lighter volume of its Surface products.
However, there's still one silver lining - growth in cloud revenue, which is seen as a key indicator of Microsoft's progress as the company transitions away from legacy businesses. "Intelligent cloud" revenue reached $6.76 billion, better than $6.60 billion expected.
The company's share fell 1% in the after hours.
Overall, analysts told CNBC that on the capital exoenditure front, companies are still playing the "wait and see" game.
[Brian Jacobsen, Chief Portfolio Strategist, Wells Fargo Fund] "It sounds like a lot of executives aren't indeed kind of sitting, waiting, to see what sort of policies to get put in place. Noboday really want to pull the trigger on capital expenditures until they actually know what the tax environment is going to look like. So I somewhat fear that the 2nd quarter earnings when we get to that, that might be a litte bit disappointing because businesses are still waiting for a little bit more clearity on the policy front."
CNBC's Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore