By Nathalie Voit
Amazon announced its fourth-quarter earnings results on Feb. 3, sending shares of its stock soaring by 14% in extended trading on Thursday.
Adjusted earnings per share surged to $5.80, the company said. This was far higher than the $3.57 expected by a Refinitiv survey of analysts, CNBC reported.
Net sales for the e-commerce giant climbed 9% to $137.4 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $125.6 billion during the same period last year. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had expected revenue to total $137.6 billion in Q4.
Sales for the period ending on Dec. 31 were the weakest since 2017, CNBC said. However, the retailer’s e-commerce losses were offset by strong gains across Amazon’s cloud computing and advertising businesses.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud division, outperformed analyst expectations to generate $17.78 billion in the fourth quarter, topping StreetAccount’s $17.37 billion estimate, according to StreetInsider. Revenue grew by nearly 40% year-over-year, CEO of Amazon Andy Jassy said in the earnings statement. The company’s cloud computing business now represents about 13% of the total revenue for the retailer.
AWS ended Q4 with $5.29 billion in operating income, up by 49% from one year ago and well above the expected consensus of $4.84 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Amazon’s advertising sector also delivered solid growth, growing by 32% year-over-year to $9.7 billion during the quarter. Over the full year, advertising services generated $31.2 billion in revenue. According to Amazon’s statement, the business represented 7% of overall revenue in Q4.
The company also revealed it would raise the price of its Prime membership for the first time since 2018. The annual Prime membership will increase from $119 to $139, and the monthly membership from $12.99 to $14.99, Amazon said. The new pricing will go into effect on Feb. 18 for new Prime members and after March 25 for existing users, according to the statement.
“Since 2018 in the U.S., availability of Free Same-Day Delivery has expanded from 48 metropolitan areas to more than 90, items available for Prime free shipping have increased over 50%, and members have saved billions of dollars shopping Prime Day. This is all on top of new program benefits like prescription savings and fast, free delivery from Amazon Pharmacy and the continually growing Amazon Music for Prime members, Prime Reading, and Prime Gaming,” the statement read.
“With the continued expansion of Prime member benefits as well as the rise in wages and transportation costs, Amazon will increase the price of a Prime membership in the U.S.”
As of Friday at 1 p.m. ET, Amazon shares continued to sustain their upward rally and were up by nearly 15%.
