Amazon Crushes Q1 Profit Expectations, Posts Nearly $60 Billion in Revenue

Seattle-based e-commerce giant reports a company-record $3.6 billion profit

Amazon

Remember when Amazon was criticized for not turning a profit? Those days are a distant memory, after the e-commerce giant smashed Wall Street earnings expectations when it reported its first quarter financials on Thursday afternoon.

Amazon reported a company-record quarterly profit of $3.6 billion — a 100% increase from the same period last year — and earnings of $7.09 per share, easily lapping analyst estimates of 4.72 EPS. It’s quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion matched Wall Street estimates and marked an increase of nearly 17 percent year-over-year.

Amazon shares increased 1.5% in after-hours trading, hitting $1,930 per share. The Seattle-based company has a market cap of about $940 billion on Thursday, putting it within striking distance of passing the $1 trillion threshold once again. Amazon became the second company ever, after Apple, to hit the $1 trillion valuation last September.

Amazon noted Fire TV now has 30 million users in its note to shareholders. Last week, Amazon and Google put an end to their long-running feud, with Amazon’s Prime Video app coming to Chromecast and Google-owned YouTube coming to Amazon’s Fire TV.

Amazon Studios greenlit more than 20 new and continuing Prime Original Series during the quarter, including the third season of “Jack Ryan” starring John Krasinski, as well as a number of international series like “La Templanza” in Spain and “El Presidente” in Mexico.

The company’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services, made $7.7 billion in revenue and accounted for more than half of the company’s quarterly profit. AWS sales increased 41% year-over-year.

In February, Amazon notably canceled plans for a second headquarters located in New York City. The company said it made the decision after “a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence Amazon had said the new campus would employ up to 25,000 people. The company’s similar “HQ2” campus in Arlington, Virginia is still expected to open.

Heading into Thursday afternoon, Amazon’s stock had increased more than 20% since the beginning of the year. At about $1,900 per share when the market closed Thursday, Amazon was nearing its all-time high of $2,012 per share, set last summer.

Amazon will hold a webcast at 5:30 p.m. ET to discuss its earnings.

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