Friday's news about Snap's revenue miss and its weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter guidance was a reminder of how earnings season can bring some major surprises from time to time. In Snap's case, the surprise was to the downside. But that's not always the case.
As earnings season continues to unfold, two Wall Street darlings are set to report their latest quarterly results this week. Social network Facebook (FB 8.00%) reports after market close on Monday and e-commerce and cloud-computing giant Amazon (AMZN 1.97%) reports after market close on Thursday.
Here's a preview of the two growth stocks' reports.
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After Friday's news of Snap's revenue miss due to global supply and labor shortages, as well as recent changes to advertising tracking and measurement on iOS, investors will be looking to see if Facebook was caught up in the same headwinds.
Analysts, on average, expect Facebook to report revenue of $29.6 billion, up about 38% compared to the company's revenue in the year-ago period. This is a deceleration from Facebook's 56% revenue growth in Q2; although Facebook's second quarter of 2021 was helped by an easy year-ago comparison when advertising revenue was negatively impacted by COVID-19-related lockdowns.
After Snap's revenue miss on Friday, many investors are likely now expecting Facebook's revenue and top-line guidance for Q4 to be below analyst estimates. But it's always possible that the social network comes out unscathed from the challenges Snap detailed last week. There are certainly some reasons to think Facebook could at least avoid some of the iOS headwinds; unlike Snap, Facebook has a meaningful presence on desktop as well -- not just mobile.
Amazon
E-commerce and cloud-computing giant Amazon could be similarly impacted by global supply and labor shortages. Its e-commerce business will almost certainly be affected in some way. The question, therefore, is if the guidance management provided when it released its second-quarter results baked in these challenges enough. After all, it was already clear that global supply and labor shortages would be a problem in Q3 and the during the holiday season. Many inventory-dependent companies were discussing these issues in their earnings calls, and most didn't expect challenges to subside until 2022.
Amazon guided for third-quarter revenue to increase 10% to 16% year over year -- a significant slowdown from the 27% growth the company posted in Q2. Analysts, on average, are expecting the company's third-quarter revenue to come in toward the high end of its guidance.
Equally as important as Amazon's third-quarter results will be its guidance for Q4. The important holiday quarter typically represents a large portion of the company's revenue and an even bigger share of its profits. Will global supply and labor shortages hold back the company during the important holiday quarter?
Analysts are modeling for fourth-quarter revenue of $142 billion, up 13% year over year.
Facebook and Amazon report earnings after market close on Oct. 25 and Oct. 28, respectively.
