Amazon Makes Huge Whiff on the Bottom Line

Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) released its most recent quarterly financial results after markets closed Thursday. The e-commerce giant absolutely whiffed on the bottom line, but as we all know historically that’s a number that has never really concerned Jeff Bezos.

The company said that it had $0.40 in earnings per share (EPS) and $38.0 billion in revenue, compared with consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for $1.42 in EPS and $37.18 in revenue. The same period from last year had $1.78 in EPS and $30.4 billion in revenue.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) more or less met Wall Street expectations when it reported $4.1 billion in revenues for this segment, with an operating income of $916 million.

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In terms of guidance for the coming quarter, the company expects to see revenues in the range of $39.25 billion to $41.75 billion with an operating income in the range of -$400 million to $300 million. The consensus estimates are calling for $1.09 in EPS and $39.93 billion in revenue.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, commented:

Our teams remain heads-down and focused on customers. In the last few months, we launched Echo Show (our newest Echo device with a video screen), introduced calling and messaging via Alexa on all Echo devices, debuted Inside Edge on Prime Video (the first of 18 Indian Original Series), introduced Amazon Channels in both the U.K. and Germany, launched four new Fire tablets, expanded Amazon Fresh to Germany, launched Prime Now in Singapore, launched our 25th airplane with Prime Air, hired more than 30,000 new employees, opened three new Amazon Books stores, launched more than 400 significant AWS features and services, migrated more than 7,000 databases using AWS Database Migration Service, and held our third annual Prime Day — signing up more Prime members than ever before. It’s energizing to invent on behalf of customers, and we continue to see many high-quality opportunities to invest.

Shares of Amazon closed Thursday at $1,046.00, with a consensus analyst price target of $1,117.73 and a 52-week range of $710.10 to $1,083.31. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was down about 2% at $1,026.81 in the after-hours trading session.

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