Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) posted strong quarterly results that came in ahead of Wall Street’s guidance.
The e-commerce giant unveiled revenue of $60.5 billion for its fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, topping analysts’ expectations of $59.85 billion. Earnings came in at $3.75 per share, well ahead of the Wall Street consensus estimate of $1.83 per share.
The recent U.S. tax reform law had a positive effect on Amazon as it offered the company a benefit of approximately $789 million during the period. The company’s business was benefited greatly by its acquisition of Whole Foods, although it is unclear how much the summer move has improve the retailer’s margins.
Another big revenue driver during the period was AWS, the company’s cloud computing operation, which has amounting to most of the company’s profits in recent quarter. However, AWS may take a step backward as competitors such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud plan on reducing the prices of their cloud businesses.
Amazon’s AWS revenue came in at $5.11 billion during the period, topping the $4.97 billion that analysts polled by FactSet were calling for. For the full year, the retailer had $177.9 billion in sales, up 31% year-over-year, but the company’s operating profit slipped 2% to $4.1 billion.
For its first quarter of fiscal 2018, Amazon forecasts that it will rake in revenue in the range of $47.75 to $50.75 billion, in line with analysts’ consensus estimate of $48.73 billion.
AMZN stock hiked up 2.6% after Thursday’s market close.
