Amazon missed the Street expectations on its third quarter earnings. But top-line figure handily surpassed estimates.
The e-commerce behemoth reported earnings of $4.23 a share, which fell behind analysts’ estimate of $4.62 (based on analysts surveyed by Refinitiv).
However, revenue surged +24% year-over-year to $70 billion, beating analysts’ expectation of $68.8 billion (based on Refinitiv poll).
Amazon Web Services registered revenue of $9 billion in the quarter, compared to $9.1 billion expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet. The segment’s revenues surged +34.7% year over year.
North America revenues (60.9% of sales) climbed +24.1% year-over-year to $42.64 billion. International revenues (26.2% of sales) increased +18% year over year to $18.35 billion.
Tailwinds to Amazon's revenue growth came in the form of strong performance of the company's free one-day delivery service, and expansion of Prime Video content. Also, solid growth in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and smart home products offerings further bolstered the quarter’s top-line numbers.
The company has spent over $800 million in each of the last two quarters to bulk up its free one-day delivery program. It expects to spend $1.5 billion more on the initiative during the fourth quarter to expand its warehouse capabilities and product selection.
Amazon also emphasized on increased spending on its cloud business and on upping the ante on its advertising sales force.
However, the company’s accelerating transportation and fulfillment center costs, and increasing competition in retail and cloud computing spaces could be potential concerns with respect to the bottom-line.
For fourth-quarter 2019, Amazon projects net sales between $80 billion and $86.5 billion, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate is $86.88 billion.