Amazon earnings on cloud nine

STRONG GROWTH IN RETAIL AND CLOUD COMPUTING SERVICES BLOWS AWAY ANALYST EXPECTATIONS OF A MISS

Amazon Inc.’s march in retail and cloud computing showed no sign of slowing on Thursday, as the company reported a surge in first-quarter profit and a rosy outlook for the spring, both ahead of expectations.

Separately, the company and the U.S. National Football League announced a deal to stream Thursday night games during the 2018 and 2019 seasons on Amazon’s Prime Video.

Amazon’s shares rose 6 per cent in after-hours trade.

Seattle-based Amazon is winning business from older, big box rivals by delivering virtually any product to customers at a low cost, and at times faster than it takes to buy goods from a physical store. It acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion last year to help it send groceries to shoppers’ doorsteps.

Amazon’s results bucked expectations that it would plow more profit into investments, as it has done in the past. The world’s largest online retailer said net income rose to US$1.6 billion, or $3.27 per share in the quarter ended March 31. Analysts on average were expecting $1.26 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales rose 43 per cent to $51.0 billion in the quarter, beating analysts’ average estimate of $49.8 billion.

The fast ascent of Amazon and its Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, now the richest person in the world, has drawn the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump. Writing critical Twitter posts about Amazon and the Washington Post, which Bezos privately owns, Trump has claimed without evidence that Amazon has not paid enough money to the U.S. Postal Service to cover delivery costs.