U.S. tech shares beat Wall Street estimates.

NEW YORK • Shares of Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet inc. and Microsoft Corp. jumped in after-hours trading as all three tech companies posted earnings that surpassed Wall Street expectations.

The biggest mover was Amazon. The Seattle company is rapidly growing: It paid nearly US$14 billion this summer for organic grocer Whole Foods; announced a series of new voice-activated Echo devices; and kicked off a public hunt for a place to build its second headquarters.

Amazon reported net income of US$256 million, or 52 cents per share, for the three months ending Sept. 30. That easily beat the 2 cents per share analysts had expected, according to FactSet. Amazon has long been known for investing the money it makes back into its businesses, such as opening new warehouses to fulfil orders. Many seemed to expect that again.

Revenue rose 34 per cent to US$43.47 billion, beating the US$41.58 billion analysts expected. The company said net sales included US$1.3 billion from Whole Foods Market, which Amazon acquired on Aug. 28. After taking over Whole Foods, Amazon slashed prices, added its logo on signs and set up a stand of “farm fresh” Amazon Echo voice-assistant devices by store entrances.

Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos touted the popularity of its devices, pointing out that it launched five new voice-activated devices in the last month.

“Customers have purchased tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices,” Bezos said.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc., which are already up 30 per cent this year, rose nearly eight per cent to US$1,047.73 in after-hours trading.

The results come a day after it announced a service called Amazon Key that will let people get their packages delivered inside their front doors.

Amazon is also sorting through 238 proposals from cities and regions in Canada and the U.S. that want to land the promised 50,000 new jobs and construction spending of more than US$5 billion of a second headquarters. The company plans to announce a decision sometime next year.

This was “another strong performance, with top-line growth accelerating in the core retail segment,” Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian told Reuters.

For the fourth quarter, the company expects revenue between US$56 billion and US$60.5 billion, up as much as 38 per cent from the year before, and above what analysts expected. For the holiday season, it expects to hire more than 120,000 temporary workers to help pack and sort orders, the same amount it hired last year.

Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc. reported third-quarter profit of US$6.73 billion. The company said it had profit of US$9.57 per share. The average estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of US$8.43 per share.

The internet search leader posted revenue of US$27.77 billion in the period. After subtracting Alphabet’s advertising commissions, revenue was US$22.27 billion, also surpassing Street forecasts. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected US$21.94 billion.

Microsoft Corp.’s fiscal first-quarter profit came in at US$6.58 billion. On a pershare basis, the company said it had net income of 84 cents. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks was for earnings of 72 cents per share.

The software maker posted revenue of US$24.54 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Nine analysts surveyed by Zacks expected US$23.53 billion.

Microsoft shares have risen 27 per cent since the beginning of the year, while the S&P 500 index has increased 14 per cent. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit US$78.76, a climb of 30 per cent in the last 12 months.

“Microsoft is set for an acceleration of growth and bookings with margin concerns that were overblown heading into 2018,” Daniel Ives at research firm GBH Insights told Reuters.