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  3. A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alph

A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alph

admin2022-11-01  22
问题     A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook reported surprisingly healthy quarterly financial results, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record. Even though the companies felt some sting from the spending slowdown, they demonstrated, as critics have argued, that they are operating on a different playing field from the rest of the economy.
    Amazon’s sales were up 40 percent from a year ago and its profit doubled. Facebook’s profit jumped 98 percent. Even though the pandemic shuttered many of its stores, Apple increased sales of all its products in every part of the world and posted $11.25 billion in profit. Advertising revenue dropped for Alphabet, the laggard of the bunch, but it still did better than Wall Street had expected. "The strong continue to get stronger," said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. "As many companies are falling by the wayside, the tech giants continue to gain muscle and power in this environment." The tech companies’ financial performance was a remarkable contrast to
    the overall health of the U.S. economy. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that the country’s gross domestic product fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year as consumers cut back spending. It was the steepest drop on record.
    Combined, the companies reported $28.6 billion in quarterly net profit, underscoring how regulatory scrutiny remains more background noise and a distraction for them rather than an imminent threat to their businesses. The pandemic has reinforced the advantages held by the big tech companies.
    As consumers stay home, demand for Amazon’s shopping site surged, while companies are turning to its cloud computing products to keep their services up and running. Apple said the shift to working and learning from home had led more people to splurge on Apple’s devices and use its services. Facebook and Google continue to be important to marketers and they are weathering the downturn in advertising better than rivals. Facebook shrugged off a spending slowdown, hailing record levels of engagement with its products. Alphabet said revenue from Google search ads fell 10 percent—pushing the company’s overall revenue lower for the first time in the company’s history—but that still was better than rivals. Last week, Microsoft reported an 18 percent slide in search advertising revenue.
    Since the beginning of March, the companies’ stock prices have risen by an average of 35 percent, compared with a 10 percent rise in the S.&P. 500.
We can learn from Paragraph 1 that the four tech giants__________.
选项 A、faced a terrible financial distress
B、kept a sound business performance
C、obtained profits dishonestly during the pandemic
D、denied the charge of their market monopoly
答案 B
解析 根据题干信息Paragraph 1和the four tech giants定位至文章首段。首句前半部分提到四家科技巨头接受立法机构质询，后半部分指出它们的季度财报业绩使其在美国有史以来最严重的经济衰退中脱颖而出(…healthy quarterly financial results，defying one of the worst economic downturns on record)，第二句援引评论人士的说法，通过让步逻辑，表明尽管消费减缓，但科技巨头和其他企业处于不同的赛道，即不会受到经济下行影响，由此可知，即使在大环境不景气的时候，科技巨头的业绩也没受到影响。选项[B]“保持良好的经营业绩”符合语意，故为答案。
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