Amazon Beats Wall Street Estimates In Its First Quarter, Thanks To AWS, Whole Foods And Subscriptions
April 26, 2018
Amazon Beats Wall Street Estimates In Its First Quarter, Thanks To AWS, Whole Foods And Subscriptions
Retail giant Amazon.com beat Wall Street’s expectations in its first quarter, thanks to continued growth in core online sales, double-digit growth of its AWS cloud service business and subscriptions and a healthy boost of revenue from Whole Foods.
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The company reported earnings of $1.6 billion or $3.27 a share, compared with consensus estimates of $1.27 per share. Revenues reached $51 billion — exceeding forecasts of $49.9 billion. Online sales still account for the bulk of its revenue, bringing in $26.9 billion in the quarter, up 18% from a year ago.
Analysts expected Amazon to see a boost from its acquisition of Whole Foods, which closed last August. That added $4.2 billion in revenue. Its Amazon Web Services business — the computers that power cloud-based business applications — also is expected to see healthy growth. AWS reported $5.4 billion in revenue, up 49% from a year ago.
Hollywood will likely pay closet attention to Amazon’s subscription revenue. CEO Jeff Bezos disclosed subscriber numbers for the first time, an eye-catching 100 million paying Prime members. Amazon reported that brought in $3.1 billion in revenue from subscriptions, up 60% from a year earlier.
Amazon reported “tens of millions” of paid customers are now using Amazon Music, with Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions growing more than 100% in the last six months.