Future histories of the Great Pandemic that began in 2020 will have to devote whole chapters to the role of technology. Had coronavirus struck even a decade earlier, the ability to moderate its spread through social distancing — with many people, at least in the developed world, able to work, shop, learn, and stay entertained and in touch, all from home — would have been far less.
Responding to the increases in demand required mighty efforts from the big tech companies. But this week has made clear the rewards they are reaping. The five biggest technology companies — Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook — together made $75bn in after-tax profits in the second quarter, nearly 90 per cent higher than a year before, and 30 per cent more than expected. Their combined revenues rose by more than a third to $332bn, even if Amazon fell slightly short of expectations; annualising that at $1.3tn would put them nearly level with the gross domestic product of Spain.
Companies in a range of other sectors have benefited, too, from the strengthening economic rebound. But suggestions that big tech companies, having outperformed during lockdown, would be outpaced by other recovering businesses as economies reopened have proved unfounded. Their performance in the pandemic is instead proving not a temporary surge that will recede, but a permanent leap forward in the global transition to online goods and services. Changes in consumer and corporate behaviour are sticking.