Amazon Beats Revenue Expectations, Shares Up 8% in After-Hours Trading

Amazon Earnings Highlights

• Q1 revenue of $127.4bn, beating expectations
• AWS revenue up 16% to $21.35bn
• Advertising revenue grew to $9.5bn, helped by machine learning

Amazon Earnings Overview

Amazon’s shares surged up to 8% in after-hours trading on Thursday following the company’s first-quarter earnings report, which revealed revenue of $127.4 billion. This surpassed the $124.5 billion estimated by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Earnings per share were reported at 31 cents, but it is unclear if this is comparable to Refinitiv’s estimate of 21 cents per share.

Other notable segments of Amazon, including Amazon Web Services and Advertising, also saw revenue exceed expectations.

For the second quarter, Amazon is forecasting revenue between $127 billion and $133 billion, below the $129.8 billion predicted by analysts.

CEO Andy Jassy expressed confidence in the company’s advertising business, which he attributed to ongoing machine learning investments, while also acknowledging the more cautious spending by cloud customers.

Despite exceeding expectations, Amazon’s single-digit sales growth remains a concern as it tries to recover from its weakest year for expansion in its 25 years as a public company.