- Meta's Q1 revenue rose 33% to $56.31 billion, beating estimates and showing strong growth
- Alphabet's Q1 revenue grew 20%, with Google Cloud hitting $20.02 billion and net income up 81%
- Amazon's Q1 EPS was $2.78, surpassing estimates, with AWS revenue up 28% year-on-year
Wednesday was a big one for US Markets, with the FOMC coming out with their rate decision. But more importantly, a slew of silicon valley tech giants and global companies like Samsung, reported their first quarter earnings.
The four big names posting their Q1 2026 earnings were Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Samsung, all of who beat Wall Street estimates on the back of AI-driven growth, whereas Samsung posted a historic profit, fueled by an explosive surge for memory chips that are used in AI data centres.
Here is a round-up of how each of these big four companies fared in the first quarter of 2026.
Meta
Meta's revenue climbed 33% year-on-year to $56.31 billion, beating estimates of $55.45 billion, and marking the fastest quarter for growth since 2021.
Earnings per share came in at $7.31 adjusted, ahead of the $6.79 expected. The biggest highlight of Meta's Q1 fineprint, though, was the capex rise, with the company bumping its full year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $125-$145 billion, up from $115-$135 billion, citing higher component pricing and additional data centre costs.
Alphabet
Alphabet reported revenue that topped expectations, growing 20% from a year earlier — its highest growth rate for any quarter since 2022.
Google Cloud revenue came in at $20.02 billion against estimates of $18.05 billion. Net income surged 81% year-on-year to $62.57 billion. CEO Sundar Pichai said enterprise AI solutions became the primary growth driver for cloud for the first time in Q1.
READ MORE: Alphabet Sales Beat Estimates On Google Cloud, AI Customers
Amazon
Amazon posted better-than-expected earnings and revenue, with EPS of $2.78 against estimates of $1.64, and revenue of $181.52 billion against estimates of $177.30 billion.
AWS was a particular outperformer, recordin 28% year-on-year revenue surge to $37.59 billion, its fastest in 15 quarters. Amazon guided for a Q2 revenue of $194-$199 billion, well ahead of expectations.
READ MORE: Amazon Q1 Results: Higher Spending Reported To Fuel Cloud Unit Sales
Samsung
Samsung was perhaps the most impressive of the lot. The South Korean tech giant reported an over eight-fold increase in first quarter operating profit to 57.2 trillion won, hitting a record and comfortably beating estimates of 55.28 trillion won.
Samsung's semiconductor arm led the growth charge, posting a whopping 48-fold jump in profit as AI's reliance on memory and an apparent shortage delivered hefty margins.
Samsung's Q1 2026 profit alone surpassed the company's total profit for the entire previous year.
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