Amazon Third quarter results are expected to be released after the closing bell on Thursday.
Here’s what analysts surveyed by LSEG are looking for:
Earnings per share: $1.57 Revenue: $177.8 billion
Wall Street is also keeping an eye on other important earnings numbers.
Amazon Web Services: $32.42 billion expected Advertising: $17.34 billion expected
AWS growth will once again be a major focus for investors as the company faces increasing pressure from cloud competitors google and microsoftalso reported quarterly results this week.
AWS revenue is expected to increase 18.1% year-over-year, which is about the same growth rate as the second quarter. Google’s cloud revenue accelerated 34% in the third quarter, while Microsoft Azure posted 40% growth.
AWS stumbled last week during a lengthy outage that lasted more than 15 hours, resulting in numerous websites going down. Microsoft experienced an outage in its Azure cloud and 365 services on Wednesday, hours before its scheduled earnings release.
The Amazon unit is also battling the perception that it is missing out on a flurry of lucrative artificial intelligence deals for cloud services.
Anthropic and Google deepened their cloud partnership last week with a deal worth tens of billions of dollars. Meta We have signed a large cloud contract with Google. oracle In the last few months.
Amazon on Wednesday opened an $11 billion AI data center called Project Rainier. It was first announced last December and is intended to train and run models from Claude chatbot creator Anthropic.
Amazon, which invested $8 billion in Anthropic, announced that the company will use 1 million custom Trainium2 chips by the end of 2025.
During last quarter’s earnings call, investors grilled Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about AWS growth and the AI race.
Jassy reiterated that AWS has a “pretty significant” leadership position in cloud market share, noting that the AI industry is still “in its infancy” and that “a small number of very large frontier models” are “very top-tier.”
Amazon’s core retail business will also be a top concern for investors as the company prepares for the start of the holiday shopping period. Amazon announced earlier this month that it plans to hire 250,000 workers, the same number it has for the past two years, in preparation for the busy season.
Adobe Analytics recently predicted that U.S. online holiday spending will increase 5.3% year-over-year to $253.4 billion, slower than last year, when online sales rose 8.7% over the same period.
During the third quarter, Amazon held its annual Prime Day sales event. According to Adobe, online spending in the U.S. reached $24.1 billion in four days in July, exceeding the company’s expectations and representing 30.3% year-over-year growth.
Mr. Jassy told investors last quarter that President Donald Trump’s tariff policy changes have not reduced demand or increased prices so far this year.
Amazon’s third-quarter sales are expected to rise 11.9% from a year ago, compared with a 13% increase in the second quarter.
Analysts surveyed by LSEG expect fourth-quarter sales to reach $208.1 billion, representing 10.8% year-over-year growth.
Amazon began a major round of layoffs Tuesday, eliminating about 14,000 positions in nearly every area of the company. Executives hinted there could be more job cuts in the new year as the company looks to slim down, cut bureaucracy and invest more in AI.
Once completed, the layoffs are expected to be the largest corporate layoff in Amazon’s history, CNBC previously reported. Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees from 2022 to 2023.
Amazon stock is up 4.9% since the beginning of the year, while the Nasdaq is up about 24% over the same period.
Amazon’s stock price chart from the beginning of the year to the present.
