SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Thursday reported a surge in profit for the second quarter, driven largely by a sharp 39 percent growth in revenues. Earnings for the quarter trounced Wall Street estimates, but revenues fell short of expectations.
Seattle, Washington-based Amazon reported second-quarter profit of $2.53 billion or $5.07 per share, up from $197 million or $0.40 per share last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $2.50 per share for the quarter.
Amazon's sales for the quarter surged 39 percent to $52.89 billion from $37.96 billion a year ago. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $53.27 billion for the quarter.
Sales from North America jumped 44 percent to $32.17 billion from $22.37 billion last year, while international sales rose 27 percent to $14.61 billion. Meanwhile, revenues of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud service division, surged 49 percent to $6.11 billion.
'We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are,' said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. 'There are now tens of thousands of developers across more than 150 countries building new devices using the Alexa Voice Service, and the number of Alexa-enabled devices has more than tripled in the past year.'
Looking forward to the third quarter, the company expects sales of $54.0 billion to $57.5 billion. Analysts currently estimate revenues of $58.02 billion.
AMZN closed Thursday's trading at $1,808.00, down $55.61 or 2.98%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, gained $41.62 or 2.30% in the after-hours trade.
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