Amazon Stock Jumps on Earnings Beat, Cloud Growth

Amazon (AMZN) stock jumped in extended trading Thursday after the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter results driven by growth in its cloud and advertising businesses.

The company reported net sales of $158.9 billion, up 11% from the year-ago period and above the $157.3 billion Wall Street expected, according to analyst estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. Earnings per share (EPS) grew more than 50% to $1.43, beating analysts’ forecasts.

Revenue at Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing unit, rose 19% to $27.4 billion, roughly in line with expectations. The division’s revenue growth has accelerated into the high teens this year after holding in the low teens in 2023.

Amazon forecast fourth-quarter net sales would fall within a range of $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion, the midpoint of which sat slightly below the $186.4 billion figure analysts were expecting, per Visible Alpha.

Amazon stock rose 6% in late trading on Thursday, after declining more than 3% in the regular session. Still, shares were up 22% for the year before the stock’s post-earnings jump.

Advertising sales increased 19% to $14.3 billion, about in line with analysts' expectations for one of Amazon’s greenest and fastest-growing revenue streams. 

Capital expenditures (CapEx) increased 5% from last year to $22.2 billion. Amazon, locked in an AI arms race with cloud-computing peers Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG; GOOGL), has significantly boosted its spending on data center infrastructure this year.

Correction: The low end of Amazon's fourth-quarter revenue guidance was $181.5 billion. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was $183.5 billion.

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