Services

Amazon Earnings: When Good Isn't Good Enough

Chris Lange

Published: April 30, 2020 4:19 pm

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) released first-quarter financial results after markets closed Thursday. The e-commerce empire said that it had $5.01 in earnings per share (EPS) and $75.5 billion in revenue, compared with consensus estimates that called for $6.25 in EPS and $73.6 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, Amazon reported $7.09 in EPS and $59.70 billion in revenue.

During the most recent quarter, Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenues increased 32.8% to $10.22 billion, up from $7.70 billion in the same period of last year, with operating income of $3.08 billion.

In its other segments Amazon reported:

• North American net sales increased 28.8% to $46.13 billion, with an operating income of $1.31 billion.
• International sales increased 18.0% to $19.11 billion, with an operating loss of $398 million.

As for guidance, the company expects to see net sales in the range of $75 billion to $81 billion, with an operating loss in the range of $1.5 billion to an operating profit of $1.5 billion in the second quarter. The consensus estimates call for $5.88 in EPS on $77.99 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, commented:

Under normal circumstances, in this coming Q2, we’d expect to make some $4 billion or more in operating profit. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Instead, we expect to spend the entirety of that $4 billion, and perhaps a bit more, on COVID-related expenses getting products to customers and keeping employees safe. This includes investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and hundreds of millions to develop our own COVID-19 testing capabilities.

Shares of Amazon closed Thursday at $2,474.00, in a 52-week range of $1,626.03 to $2,463.89. The consensus price target is $2,537.63. Following the announcement, the stock was down 5% at $2,350.00 in the after-hours session.