Amazon Q4 Results Beat Street, But Q1 Sales Outlook Misses

(RTTNews) - Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Thursday reported a strong increase in profit for the fourth quarter, as revenues for the holiday season quarter jumped 20 percent. Earnings and revenues for the quarter trounced Wall Street estimates. However, the tech giant's outlook for the current quarter was weak.

Seattle, Washington-based Amazon reported fourth-quarter profit of $3.03 billion or $6.04 per share, up from $1.86 billion or $3.75 per share last year. On average, 45 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $5.67 per share for the quarter.

Amazon's sales for the quarter jumped 20 percent to $72.38 billion from $60.45 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $71.87 billion for the quarter.

Sales from North America jumped 18 percent to $44.12 billion from $37.30 billion last year, while international sales rose 15 percent to $20.83 billion. Meanwhile, revenues of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud service division, surged 45 percent to $7.43 billion.

Looking forward to the first quarter, the company expects sales of $56 billion to $60 billion. Analysts currently estimate revenues of $60.96 billion.

AMZN closed Thursday's trading at $1,718.73, up $48.30 or 2.89%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, slipped $3.74 or 0.22% in the after-hours trade.