© Reuters
Liz Moyer and Scott Kanowski
Investing.com — Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) beat its fourth-quarter earnings expectations, but top-line results for its main cloud business, Amazon Web Services, fell slightly short of expectations.
The e-commerce giant’s stock fell 6% in after-hours trading.
The $149.2 billion was 8.5% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2021 and exceeded analyst expectations of $145.7 billion. Meanwhile, AWS, Amazon’s main revenue driver, generated $21.4 billion, up 20% from the same period last year, but slightly below his expected $21.9 billion.
“Customer demand in our store business exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter as a result of our relentless focus on providing the widest selection, exceptional value and fast delivery. We thank all of our customers for their support,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.
But Jassy pointed out that the company faces an uncertain economy in the short term. Analysts at Jefferies say Amazon’s outlook for operating profit this quarter is between $0 billion and $4 billion, “suggesting continued cost headwinds.” .
Amazon said it expects net sales in the first quarter of 2023 to be between $121 billion and $126 billion, or an increase of 4% to 8% compared to the first quarter of 2022. Analysts had forecast first-quarter sales of $125 billion.
Amazon emphasized the 2022 holiday season, highlighting that customers purchased nearly 500 million items from small businesses in the United States.
The company reported fourth quarter earnings of 3 cents per share. Analysts had expected adjusted earnings per share of 17 cents.
According to Amazon, net sales will grow 9% in 2022 to $514 billion.