Amazon shares soar after company posts surprise profit
Originally published October 22, 2015 at 1:23 pm Updated October 22, 2015 at 2:07 pm
Big gains in Amazon’s cloud-computing business help push the company’s results into the black, when analysts were expecting red ink.
seattletimes.com
By Jay Greene
Seattle Times business reporter
Amazon.com shares soared in after-hours trading Thursday as the company blew past Wall Street expectations for its third quarter, posting a profit when most analysts were projecting a loss.
The online retail giant saw huge gains in its cloud-computing unit, Amazon Web Services. The division, which rents computing resources to businesses, saw its revenue jump 78 percent to $2.1 billion in the quarter. Operating income for the unit more than quintupled to $521 million.
For the quarter, Amazon $79 million, or 17 cents share, compared with a year-ago loss of $437 million, or 95 cents a share. Net sales increased 23 percent to $25.36 billion. Analysts had been expecting Amazon to lose 13 cents a share on sales of $24.91 billion.
The company said it had 222,400 employees at the end of the third quarter, a 21 percent gain from the previous quarter.
The news came after the stock market closed. Amazon finished the trading day at $563.91, up $8.14. The earnings report pushed Amazon’s stock up 11 percent in after hours trading to $626.27, an all-time high. |
