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 same period last year and higher than the $157.3 billion expected on Wall Street, according to analyst estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. Earnings per share (EPS) rose more than 50% to $1.43, beating analysts’ expectations.

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 accelerated to record highs this year after remaining at low levels in 2023.

Amazon expected fourth-quarter net sales to fall in a range of $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion, slightly below the $186.4 billion figure analysts had expected, according to Visible Alpha.

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

Ad sales increased 19% to $14.3 billion, roughly in line with analyst expectations for one of Amazon’s greenest and fastest-growing revenue sources.

Capital expenditures (CapEx) rose 5% from a year ago to $22.2 billion. Amazon, engaged 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.

revision: The lower end of Amazon’s revenue guidance for the fourth quarter was $181.5 billion. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the amount was $183.5 billion.