Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) reported a huge beat on profits but a narrow miss on revenue for its second-quarter earnings on Thursday.
Earnings per share rolled in at $5.07 vs. $2.50, as estimated, while revenues were $52.9 billion vs. $53.41 billion, as estimated.
Amazon's net income saw a whopping 12-fold increase from the year-ago period, to a record $2.5 billion, marking the third consecutive quarter of surpassing $1 billion in profits. Amazon's quarterly profit topped the $1 billion threshold for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The profit expansion is largely driven by the growth of Amazon's high-margin businesses, like cloud and advertising.
Amazon's cloud service re-accelerated its sales growth for the third straight quarter, to 49% year-over-year, despite increased competition from Microsoft and Google. Its $6.1 billion revenue was just 11% of Amazon's total sales, but its operating income of $1.6 billion accounted for 55% of the total.
Amazon's "other" revenue, which is mostly comprised of advertising sales, came in at $2.2 billion, up 132% from last year. This is the second-straight quarter of surpassing $2 billion in advertising revenue.
Amazon's total revenue, which includes sales from Whole Foods, increased 39% year-over-year. Its North America revenue jumped 44% to $32.1 billion, while international sales grew 27% to $14.6 billion.
Revenue guidance for the third quarter fell short of Wall Street estimates. Amazon expects revenue in the range of $54 billion to $57.5 billion in the third-quarter, slightly below street estimates of between $55.6 billion to $62.2 billion. Sales from Prime Day, which took place in July, will be included in Amazon's third-quarter results.
Amazon continued to grow its workforce to a record-high 575,700 employees in the quarter. That's up 51% from last year, and a 2% increase sequentially.
Shares jumped $53.75, or 3%, to $1,861.79.
