The coronavirus has us even more reliant on Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google

Big tech is booming. Hundreds of millions of people have sought shelter in their homes in hopes of slowing the spread the novel corona virusTechnology has become an even more indispensable part of our lives. This led to more power, far-reaching influence and more profit for technology companies that were already among the most powerful in the world.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google each reported financial results last week with earnings that were lower than before the corona virus broke out into a global recession, but were still huge. Investors still had to hear Apple’s iPhone sales decline Google and Facebooks Advertising revenue declined and Amazon spends a lot of money to keep warehouse workers safe. But there were also bright spots.

The most meaningful was that each company found that their respective niche in our lives has become more important during the ban.

Many companies saw that their app stores, video services, and games – often viewed as secondary businesses – were taking on new meaning as people were looking for new forms of entertainment and connectivity. Once boring companies like the video chat app Zoom have become cultural touchstones and have triggered competition with video chat from Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, which give consumers limited access to the next place to go to set up a birthday party or a digital meeting point.

“If everyone is suffering a little financially and we have a lot of time, this is a great opportunity for them to throw a few free things at us to make us addicted,” he said Roger Kay, Analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. “We can’t rely on this stuff.”

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What all this will mean when the crisis is over is uncertain. Before the corona virus, lawmakers around the world were considering regulations to curb the incredible power of these companies. These rules could include data protection laws that restrict advertising business. Law enforcement agencies have threatened device manufacturers and called for a way to break into a suspect’s iPhone. In the meantime, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and others are investigating whether Apple, Amazon, Google, or Facebook may be dissolved.

However, these concerns have largely disappeared in public as most consumers are concerned about getting sick or where their next paycheck might come from. Analysts say companies are in power. The most dramatic example of this was the announcement by Apple and Google to incorporate corona virus tracking technology into our phones to potentially warn people who might be close to someone who was later classified as infected.

“In an announcement, they’re bringing out something that could potentially serve half of the planet,” he said Bob O’Donnell, Analyst at Technalysis Research. “It ignores country borders and political borders – boom, just like that.”

The bigger question these companies will face is not just how much more they will be welcomed into our lives. This way, they can turn their sudden fortune into regained trust as soon as we are back to normal.

“The good news is that the tools are available to users,” added O’Donnell. “It will also raise concerns among people who say they have too much power.”

New important

In February, Apple was one of the first technology companies to raise an alarm about the effects of the corona virus when it saw a decline in sales and production in China. The company warned investors that it was unlikely to achieve its planned sales targets.

While iPhone sales declined nearly 7% to $ 28.9 billion, services and wearables, two categories that have been growing steadily for years, rose 16.5% and 22.5%, respectively.

“Given how COVID-19 touched Apple, our customers, and how we work, this may not have been the quarter this pandemic could have been missing,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook during a conference call with analysts on Thursday. “But I don’t think I can remember a quarter where I was proud of what we do or how we do it.”

Big Tech is not so optimistic about the future. Apple has not provided detailed revenue or profit guidance for the coming quarter due to uncertainties surrounding the corona virus. Neither Google nor Facebook, although the two internet giants have warned that the advertising business will not return to normal for a while.

Chip giant Qualcomm said phone deliveries worldwide are expected to decrease 30% worldwide in the June quarter. Apple rival Samsung said phone and TV sales will “decrease significantly” due to the corona virus. CCS Insights, a market researcher, said phone sales worldwide are likely to hit a 10-year low this year.

However, an uncertain financial environment has not stopped many of the large technology companies from finding ways to go deeper into our lives. Amazon’s online grocery services have received more orders than they can handle. The company also said that the number of people watching prime video shows and films for the first time almost doubled in March. At Google, the search giant’s advertising business has suffered from companies like the travel giant Expedia reduce their expensesThe advertising business on YouTube owned by Google has grown by 33% while the video giant maintains us. And at Microsoft, it’s the Xbox video game console, their Xbox Game Pass subscription service notched more than 10 million Subscribers.

Facebook, Twitter and Snap are getting more attention as people turn to them to replace the social interaction we’ve all lost. All three companies saw strong user growth in the three months to March, with the number of daily users on Twitter and Snap increasing by at least 20%.

According to Facebook, almost 3 billion people now use its namesake service and apps, including WhatsApp and Instagram. This corresponds to an increase of 11% compared to the previous year. And although all of these eyeballs did not result in much more advertising dollars, Facebook said the recently launched Oculus Quest headset has helped 80% of sales without ads increase to $ 297 million. That’s a fraction of total sales of $ 17.73 billion, but a positive sign of the stagnating market for Virtual reality hardware.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, also said separately that sales of the company’s portal video chat devices had increased ten times, although he didn’t specify how long.

“I think it’s one of those areas where people can’t go out into the world so much, the ability to have technology that allows us to feel present even when we can’t be physically together – whether the quest is or portal or one of the software we develop around the video presence – the stuff certainly sees particularly large usage peaks, “he said in a conference call earlier this week.

Of course, companies still rely on their core businesses for much of their sales, such as the iPhone for Apple, advertising for Facebook, and search ads for Google. In some cases, such as Facebook and Google, analysts and executives warn that the advertising business will not return to normal for a while. But these other, smaller units have shown their importance in the midst of turbulence.

Magic offensive

Tech companies seem to know that their moment may end in the sun, and some have tried to answer questions or resolve concerns as long as they can.

While Apple and Google have spoken about their contract tracking technology, they have regularly published information about the technology. Set up media calls and answer questions from the press; and even renamed the technology as an “exposure notification” tool. Analysts partly attribute these steps to trying to get people to trust the system. This will be activated at the launch later this year. The two companies even promised to dismantle the program as soon as the coronavirus threat subsided.

Amazon used the top of its Press release on first quarter results to show all possible ways of investing in improved security conditions for employees and in increased capacity and better price control for consumers in order to address increasing criticism on both fronts.

And while Facebook apparently couldn’t do anything right in 2019 after addressing the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the political misinformation on its website, many people got back on the train during the ban.

Our acceptance of big tech could give these companies a do-over, despite all of the shortcomings in recent years, to regain trust, analysts say. In any case, the major technology companies have launched initiatives to show that they help fight the corona virus. Apple and Google are building up their exposure notification system and donating Millions of masks and face shields for health workers. The company is on Amazon Spend $ 4 billion to increase worker protection. And Facebook has Misinformation taken much faster than in the 2016 elections, and that’s it prohibited lockdown protests from being organized on its platform.

“This is a unique moment for them to get back into the common good,” he said Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, and to show that “their role in consumer life and their dominance as a company are used not only for their own business benefit, but also to give something good back to society.”

Even if they don’t, the past few months have been a reminder of how dominant companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook are. Well, said Bajarin, it is a question of whether you are taking this opportunity to get back to our good graces.

“I hope you take advantage of this moment,” he added. “But you could totally screw it up.”

CNET’s Richard Nieva and Queenie Wong contributed to this report.