SAN FRANCISCO -- Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday announced its second-quarter financial results ending June 30, with a 40-percent net sales increase to 88.9 billion U.S. dollars compared with 63.4 billion dollars in the same period last year.

Excluding the 582-million-dollar unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 41 percent. Third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than first-party sales, the U.S. e-commerce giant said. (US-Amazon)

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, on Thursday reported second-quarter revenue of 38.30 billion U.S. dollars, down 2 percent from the same period last year.

The company announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, with net income of 6.96 billion dollars or 10.13 dollars earnings per diluted share, compared with 9.95 billion dollars or 14.21 dollars earnings per diluted share in the same period of 2019. (US-Alphabet-Financial Results)

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SAN FRANCISCO -- U.S. social media giant Facebook Inc. reported on Thursday its financial results for the second quarter of 2020, with net income growing 98 percent to 5.178 U.S. billion dollars for the quarter ending on June 30, compared with 2.616 billion dollars in the corresponding period last year.

Facebook's quarterly revenue grew to 18.68 billion dollars, up 11 percent year-over-year from 16.9 billion dollars, with advertising revenue rising 10 percent to 18.321 billion dollars, compared with 16.624 billion dollars in the same period last year. (US-Facebook-Financial Results)

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WASHINGTON -- The number of initial jobless claims in the United States rose to 1.43 million last week amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, following an increase in the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

In the week ending July 25, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 12,000 from a revised 1,422,000 in the prior week, the department said. (US-Jobless Claims-COVID 19)