Amazon impresses with strong quarterly results – Stock on the rise

Amazon surpassed analysts' expectations with its impressive third-quarter results and recorded a 5.7% increase in after-hours trading, despite the outlook for the upcoming quarter falling slightly short of expectations. The e-commerce and cloud giant reported an adjusted earnings per share of $1.43, exceeding the consensus estimate of $1.14 by $0.29. Quarterly revenue amounted to $158.9 billion, surpassing the estimate of $157.25 billion, representing an 11% increase compared to the previous year. Amazon's cloud division, AWS, continued its strong performance with a year-over-year revenue growth of 19% to $27.5 billion. The North America segment saw a revenue increase of 9% to $95.5 billion, while international sales grew by 12% to $35.9 billion. Despite the positive results, Amazon's revenue forecast for the fourth quarter, at $181.5 to $188.5 billion, fell short of the analyst consensus of $186.36 billion. The operating income for Q4 is expected to be between $16.0 and $20.0 billion. “With the start of the holiday season, we are excited about what we have in store for customers," said Andy Jassy, President and CEO of Amazon. "We kicked off the season with our biggest Prime Big Deal Days yet and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup, which far exceeds our expectations.” The company highlighted its continued investments in AI capabilities, including the expansion of its generative AI shopping assistant Rufus to several new countries and the introduction of new AI-based features for sellers and advertisers.