Amazon beats holiday-quarter sales estimates, shares up 10%

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (O:) on Thursday beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter revenue, as its efforts to speed up delivery helped attract more shoppers during the holiday season, sending its shares up 10%.

Retailers usually generate a majority of their annual sales and profit during the holiday period.

The company forecast net sales in the range of $69 billion and $73 billion for the first quarter. Analysts were expecting revenue of $71.65 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net sales in North America, its biggest market, jumped 21.6% to $53.67 billion during the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected revenue of $52.23 billion from the segment.

Revenue from its lucrative cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS), which sells data storage and computing power in the cloud, surged 34% to $9.95 billion. Analysts had expected $9.84 billion.

Amazon’s total operating expenses surged 21.8% during the quarter to $83.56 billion.

Net sales rose 21% to $87.44 billion in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 , beating estimates of $86.02 billion.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.