Shares in Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) skyrocketed after the bell on Thursday after the ecommerce behemoth smashed expectations with first-quarter revenue and profit.
Net sales soared by 43% to US$51.0bn (1Q 17: US$35.7bn) in the opening three months of the year, topping Wall Street estimates of US$49.9bn.
Net income more than doubled to US$1.9bn (1Q 17: US$724mln) or US$3.27 per share, comfortably ahead of analysts’ forecasts for earnings of US$1.27 per share.
The results sent Amazon.com’s stock up by 6.7% to fresh all-time highs of US$1,619.99.
Prime subscriber growth
Part of the reason for the strong performance is the number of Prime subscribers, which Amazon revealed earlier this month had breached the 100mln mark.
That number is expected to keep on climbing as well, thanks to Amazon’s seemingly relentless focus on innovation.
The US$700bn company recently introduced a new delivery service for Prime customers, which means items can be delivered into the trunk of their car, while Amazon will reportedly spend around US$6bn this year to beef up its video offering.
Of course, last summer’s acquisition of Whole Foods also served to boost results this time around, while Amazon’s Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform is also growing quickly.
Amazon Web Services surges
“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO.
“As a result, the AWS services are by far the most evolved and most functionality-rich. AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day. That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row.”
--Updates for additional info and CEO comment--