(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. dispelled concern about the cost of next-day delivery by reporting holiday-quarter revenue and profit that crushed Wall Street estimates. The stock surged 12% on the news.
Fourth-quarter sales were $87.4 billion and profit was $6.47 a share, the Seattle-based company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts were looking for sales of $86.2 billion and earnings of $4.11 a share, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Amazon is spending to fend off rivals in several key parts of its business. In e-commerce, the company is rolling out next-day delivery, up from its previous two-day offering, to fight intensified competition from Walmart Inc. and other retailers. The Amazon Web Services cloud business is building new data centers and hiring engineers in response to steady gains by Microsoft Corp. and a renewed customer push from Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to plow money into overseas markets such as India and Brazil.
Paid members of Amazon’s Prime subscription, which offers free fast shipping and other perks, topped 150 million, the company said. That was up from about 100 million in 2018, and suggests Amazon is luring overseas shoppers as the U.S. market saturates.
”This shows how big of a step one-day delivery was in terms of maintaining engagement on its marketplace,” said RJ Hottovy, an equity analyst at Morningstar Inc. “The Prime membership number shows they are seeing strong growth internationally.”
Shares jumped to a high of $2,133.75 in extended trading, putting the company on course for a $1 trillion valuation on Friday. The stock closed at $1,870.68 in New York on Thursday. Amazon had climbed about 12% in the past year, lagging behind tech industry peers.
To contact the reporter on this story: Spencer Soper in Seattle at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alistair Barr at [email protected], Andrew Pollack
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