Another strong Amazon quarter moves it closer to becoming first $1 trillion company

[midian182]

The big picture: After missing predicted targets in their most recent quarterly reports, both Facebook and Netflix saw shares tumble. But it's not the same story for Amazon. While the online retail giant’s revenue was slightly below earning estimates, profit was double expectations, pushing Jeff Bezos’s firm ever closer to becoming the first $1 trillion company.

Again, it was Amazon’s cloud computing arm and advertising business that helped it to yet another strong quarter. Earnings per share were $5.07, smashing analysts' estimations of $2.50. That meant quarterly profit was a record $2.5 billion, marking an incredible 1286 percent YoY increase—Amazon’s profit was ‘only’ $197 million in Q2 2017.

Revenue grew 39 percent YoY to $52.89 billion, which was slightly lower than the expected $53.41 billion. Amazon Web Services sales hit $6 billion, marking a yearly growth rate of almost 50 percent, while the segment’s profit was $1.64 billion.

North American sales were up 44 percent year-over-year to $32.17 billion, with operating income at $1.84 billion. Internationally, sales were up 27 percent to $14.6 billion, while net loss fell from $724 million to $494 million.

Despite increasing subscription costs, Amazon Prime subscription revenues grew 57 percent to $3.4 billion.

Amazon shares were up 4.4 percent in after-hours trading. The firm is getting ever closer to beating Apple and Alphabet to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company. It’s a stark contrast to Facebook, which saw its stock drop 24 percent yesterday on the back of slow user growth and missed targets, while Netflix shares fell 14 percent after missing subscriber expectations.

Amazon mentioned in the report the success of its recent Prime Day. the company's biggest global shopping event ever saw members purchase 100 million products, with the best-selling items worldwide being the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and Echo Dot. The success was even more remarkable considering the slew of technical problems it faced at the start of the day.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/75698-another-strong-amazon-quarter-moves-closer-becoming-first.html

 

[ForgottenLegion]

I thought Apple already hit that milestone.

 

[Reehahs]

I thought Apple already hit that milestone.

They would have if iPhone X didn't have an ugly notch.

 

[Uncle Al]

Unfortunately Amazon is really falling down on a number of the products it represents. I have received several that were no where near the claims in the ad. It took repeated bad reviews and complaints to Amazon to get action. They did finally follow through but the degree of work on my end made it obvious they have built a system geared toward discouraging the buyer .......

 

[wiyosaya]

Unfortunately Amazon is really falling down on a number of the products it represents. I have received several that were no where near the claims in the ad. It took repeated bad reviews and complaints to Amazon to get action. They did finally follow through but the degree of work on my end made it obvious they have built a system geared toward discouraging the buyer .......

I would not call it discouraging the buyer so much as deceiving the buyer. That is one reason I will shop elsewhere and have almost completely stopped using crapAzon.

For the longest time, I have hated their search engine. I frequently see results for exactly the same product only at different prices and this only depends on what search terms I use. In addition, if I am looking for something, the search results will show me crap that may only be remotely related to what I am looking for.

Not to mention the games they play with free shipping to non-prime members where they wait until the absolute last minute possible to ship items so that they will get to me by end of the promised window. I can get free shipping, depending on the merchant, sometimes free two-day shipping, from other merchants without having these games played. If you complain about it, they then tell you that they schedule their shipping to be the most efficient. Uh-huh. More like to coerce people into joining sub-Prime.

IMO, Amazon is interested in nothing but parting its customers from their money by any means necessary, and apparently, there are enough people out there willing to tolerate their antics.

 

[Reachable]

Wall St. is obsessed with infinite expandability. Facebook and Twitter shares collapsed because the companies aren't growing or aren't growing fast enough. Therefore they become less valuable. It's completely crazy, but if that were the only thing crazy about Wall St. then your lungs wouldn't collapse trying to explicate it all.

Maybe that's one reason why Amazon feels like it has to expand constantly and in every direction. If it stopped getting bigger, or even stopped getting bigger so quickly, it would be cut down to a fraction of its value.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Of course, if they were forced to pay their employees actual wages and provide decent work environments, their profitability would take a massive hit. Easy to hit super high valuation when you have sudo-slave labor.

Also no telling if taxation is going to hit them hard in sales this year VS brick and mortar stores.