Amazon beats on 4Q earnings, but shares drop in after-hours trading

Amazon.com Inc’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) fourth-quarter earnings smashed expectations on Thursday, reporting an earnings beat on both top and bottom lines.

Guidance, however, disappointed.

The e-commerce giant saw its shares drop 2% late on Thursday, after rising 3% during the day.

The company reported 4Q earnings of $6.04 per share on revenue of $72.4 billion, beating street estimates of $5.67 per share on $71.61 billion in revenue.

The fourth-quarter is generally the largest for Amazon because it includes the holiday shopping season.

Net sales are expected to be between $56 billion and $60 billion in the first quarter, or to grow between 10% and 18% compared with first quarter of 2018. The company said this anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 210 basis points from foreign exchange rates.

Amazon’s operating income is expected to be between $2.3 billion and $3.3 billion in the first quarter, compared with the year-ago period’s $1.9 billion.

Amazon shares are trading 18% below its August 2018 high of $2,050.

Contact Katie Lewis at [email protected]

Story by ProactiveInvestors