How are the tech giants doing during coronavirus? Extremely well, of course: Facebook, Microsof, Spotify, Amazon and Netflix are gaining value and users

The coronavirus and quarantine may have triggered a global economic crisis for most physical business, but the same has not happened for digital tech brands that, based on first-quarter budgets, are seeing their shares rise. The contagion has not stopped the business of companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Spotify, Amazon and TikTok whose digital services, in times of social distancing and lockdown, are increasingly in demand. To get an idea of the proportions of this growth, just think that Amazon, with a 28% increase in its shares, is three times the main list of Piazza Affari, which includes 40 different companies and is now beginning to differentiate its offer beyond services such as Prime Video but also with Amazon Fresh, dedicated to grocery delivery.

Streaming services are also having particular luck. While the closure of parks and cinemas, as well as the interruption of productions, has damaged Disney, Netflix has grown by 32% and is valued "only" nine billion less than the entertainment titan founded by Walt Disney. And Spotify also managed to close solid in the first quarter, despite suffering a similar drop in sponsorships to Facebook, with revenues rising 22%.

The rising revenues of these big tech companies are not without shadows and contradictions – the first of all is the sponsorship crisis that has involved both Facebook and Spotify, leading in the case of Facebook to results that, although comforting compared to the general climate of this period, have not been optimal in all respects , also because they are conditioned by the legal fees due to multibillion-dollar fines by U.S. federal authorities for privacy violations, leading to that serene but cautious tone of the company's spokesmen. Microsoft has also been damaged by the media attacks suffered by Bill Gates by the American ultra-right, which has put him at the center of plots of all kinds, while Jeff Bezos has ended up at the center of more realistic controversies due to the strong protest of Amazon employees who tomorrow, for example, will strike along with those of other big American chains like Walmart.