E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) has reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings due to strength in its cloud computing business unit.
The Seattle-based company reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.31 U.S. compared to a consensus forecast of $0.21 a share expected on Wall Street.
Revenue in Q1 totaled $127.4 billion U.S. versus $124.5 billion U.S. that was expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
The earnings beat on the top and bottom lines was largely driven by cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS), which posted revenue of $21.3 billion U.S., up 16% from a year ago and better than the $21.22 billion U.S. expected by analysts.
Online advertising also showed strength in the quarter, coming in at $9.5 billion U.S. versus $9.1 billion U.S. that was expected by analysts who cover the company.
Amazon’s stock initially rose as much as 8% when the Q1 results were made public. However, the share price later fell about 3% after executives raised concerns about weakness in cloud computing growth on a call with analysts and media.
For the current second quarter, Amazon said it expects revenue will be $127 billion U.S. to $133 billion U.S. Analysts had called for sales of $129.8 billion U.S. in Q2.
In the last 12 months, Amazon’s stock has declined 24% to $109.82 U.S. per share.
