Amazon Profit Beats Street View On Double-Digit Revenue Growth, Stock Gains 5%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) jumped nearly 5% in the extended trading session on Thursday after the online retail giant's fourth-quarter profit beat Wall Street's estimates.

Seattle, Washington-based Amazon reported a fourth-quarter profit of $10.62 billion or $1.00 per share, compared with $278 million or $0.76 per share last year.

Fourth-quarter 2023 profit includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $0.1 billion included in non-operating income from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation loss of $2.3 billion from the investment in the fourth quarter of 2022.

On average, 38 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.80 per share for the quarter.

Amazon's sales for the quarter increased 14% to $170.0 billion from $149.2 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $166.21 billion for the quarter.

"This Q4 was a record-breaking Holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon," said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. "While we made meaningful revenue, operating income, and free cash flow progress, what we're most pleased with is the continued invention and customer experience improvements across our businesses.

Sales from North America gained 13% to $105.5 billion, while international sales rose 17% to $40.2 billion. Meanwhile, revenues of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud service division, increased 13 percent to $24.2 billion.

Looking forward to the first quarter, the company expects sales of $138.0 billion to $143.5 billion. Analysts currently estimate revenues of $142.13 billion.

AMZN closed Thursday's trading at $159.28, up $4.08 or 2.63%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $7.57 or 4.75% in the after-hours trading.