Digital Platforms Research, Forecasts & Analysis

Apple Q1 2026: Five Things to Watch

: iPhone revenue grew 22% last quarter with Cook calling demand 'off the charts.' The bull case is that Apple's on-device AI — Apple Intelligence, a personalised Siri, and Gemini integration — creates a durable reason to upgrade that the market has not yet priced. The bear case is that most iPhone us…

Amazon Q1 2026: Five Things to Watch

: AWS delivered a 37.7% operating margin in Q1 2026, up from 32.7% a year earlier. The source of the expansion — Trainium and Graviton custom silicon displacing expensive Nvidia GPUs — is real and structural. The risk is that as Trainium commitments convert to live workloads, the support and operatio…

Meta Q1 2026: Five Things to Watch

: Meta's ad revenue grew 33% last quarter, powered by algorithmic improvements compounding since 2022. The company has not disaggregated how much of that growth is attributable to Advantage+ AI targeting versus underlying demand recovery. Until it does, investors cannot assess whether the $125-145 bi…

Alphabet Q1 2026: Five Things to Watch

: A $462 billion Cloud backlog nearly doubling quarter-on-quarter is the single most impressive data point of the entire earnings season. Management says more than half should convert within 24 months, implying a minimum $230 billion revenue tailwind. That trajectory would make Cloud the dominant dri…

Microsoft Q1 2026: Five Things to Watch

: Azure grew 40% in the March quarter and management guided for modest acceleration in the second half of calendar 2026. The $627 billion commercial backlog gives credibility to that claim. What it does not explain is how Azure sustains velocity when gross margin on cloud is compressing under soaring…