The world’s biggest retailer beat third-quarter revenue estimates last night as high interest rates failed to deter people from spending on its ecommerce platform for everything from groceries to electronics.
Amazon said its group revenue in the third quarter to the end of September had risen by 13 per cent to $143.1 billion, beating analysts’ forecasts of $141.41 billion. Its net income more than tripled to $9.9 billion from $2.87 billion a year earlier, a figure that included a pre-tax valuation gain of $1.2 billion from the company’s investment in Rivian, the electric carmaker.
Amazon Web Services brought in revenue of $23.1 billion, compared with Wall Street expectations of $23.09 billion. The revenue stream underscores how the technology group’s dominant position in the sector is helping it to overcome challenges in a tough market.
The company forecast current-quarter revenue in the range of $160 billion and $167 billion; analysts had pencilled in revenue of $166.62 billion. After mixed results from Big Tech rivals in the latest earnings season, investors welcomed Amazon’s figures and lifted the shares 3.5 per cent, or $4.17, to $123.76 in late trading in New York.
Based in Seattle, Washington State, Amazon has a sprawling range of interests including retail, streaming and advertising. Through AWS, the world’s biggest cloud computing business, it also stores and crunches data for corporations in a vast network of data centres. It was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and has a stock market value of about $1.2 trillion.
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Amazon has raced to cut costs this year, laying off 27,000 workers and pausing construction on its vast second headquarters on the outskirts of Washington DC as it dealt with heightened inflation and mounting concerns over a potential recession.
Andy Jassy, its chief executive, said: “We had a strong third quarter as our cost-to-serve and speed of delivery in our Stores business took another step forward, our AWS growth continued to stabilise, our advertising revenue grew robustly and overall operating income and free cashflow rose significantly.”
