Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Katherine Taylor | Reuters
Amazon shares climbed as much as 5% in extended trading Thursday after the company released its first-quarter earnings, beating Wall Street’s expectations for earnings and revenue.
Here’s how the e-commerce giant fared, relative to analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv:
- Earnings: $15.79 per share vs. $9.54 per share expected
- Revenue: $108.52 billion vs. $104.47 billion expected
Few companies have benefited from the pandemic-fueled surge of online shopping as much as Amazon. The company notched record profits and revenue last year, while CEO Jeff Bezos announced earlier this month that Amazon crossed more than 200 million Prime subscribers, up from 150 million at the start of 2020.
In 2020, Amazon invested heavily on coronavirus-related measures like safety protocols and wage increases for front-line workers. As a result of these costs, Amazon last quarter forecast operating income of $3 billion to $6.5 billion in the current period. Those coronavirus-related costs are expected to slow this year, although on Wednesday, Amazon said it would spent more than $1 billion on pay raises for more than half a million of its U.S. operations workers.
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