Facebook and Google have reported relatively strong financial results over the second quarter of the year, showing that they have been able to weather the worst of the Covid-19 storm.
Facebook's ad revenue grew 10% year on year to $18.3bn over the second quarter of the year, with revenue growth of 11% to $18.7bn.
It said that ad revenue in July has been in line with the second quarter results, despite boycotts from some major brands including Unilever and Coca-Cola.
The platform's monthly active users grew by 12% to 2.7 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, said: "This was a strong quarter for us, especially compared to what we expected at the start.
"There are now more than 3.1 billion people using our services every month to stay connected, and more than 180 million businesses who use our tools to connect with customers. We also had more than nine million active advertisers across our services as many shifted their business online."
Alphabet, which owns Google, reported an 8.4% decline in ad revenue to $29.9bn – the first decline in ad sales in its history – with total revenue dropping 1.7% to $38.3bn.
Analysts said that when comparing this decrease to Facebook's performance, Alphabet's decline is from a much larger base and the results were better than expectations.
Ruth Porat, chief financial officer at Alphabet and Google, said that there was a "gradual improvement" in the company's ad business as well as strong growth in Google Cloud.
"We continue to navigate through a difficult global economic environment," she added.
YouTube reported ad revenue up 5.8% to $3.8bn but this was much slower than the rate at which it grew in the first quarter – 33.5%.
Amazon also reported strong Q2 results, with growth of more than 40% from the division that chiefly includes its ad sales business.
The online retailer's sales were up 40% to $88.9bn and operating income rose 87% to $5.8bn.
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