Amazon to Miss Q4 Revenues Amid a 15% Rise in U.S. Holiday Sales?

Data recently released by comScore suggests Amazon AMZN will miss analysts' fourth quarter revenue estimates by $320 million or 1.75%. According to the comScore report, holiday sales season-to-date of $35.3 billion has been spent online, marking a 15% increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week (ending Dec. 25) witnessed $2.8 billion in spending, an increase of 16% versus the corresponding week last year. Goldman Sachs published a research report Wednesday evening on Amazon after comScore reported that eCommerce spending data for the first 56 days of the 2011 holiday season. In the Goldman Sachs report, the analyst states that over the past 5 years, Amazon's Q4 revenues are 23 percentage points above the comScore holiday study, on average. In this case, Amazon should report a fourth quarter revenue increase of 38% versus the prior year period. The online retailer had sales of nearly $13 billion in Q4 of 2010. Expanding that figure out 38%, it suggests Amazon's Q4 revenue for 2011 should be about $17.86 billion. However, consensus analyst estimates for the fourth quarter have Amazon estimated to produce a top-line number of $18.18 billion. So the comScore data suggests that Amazon will miss Q4 revenues by $320 million. Early in Thursday's trading session, shares of Amazon were under much pressure. At one point, shares of the online retail giant were down over 3%, while the Nasdaq Composite was trading positive at the same time. However, comScore said that there was a "significant spike" in digital content, new tablets, and e-readers sales, all products that Amazon features. comScore stated in the report, "One of the interesting e-commerce phenomena occurring over the past several years is the dramatic increase in Christmas Day purchases of Digital Content & Subscriptions, a retail category that includes digital downloads of music, TV, movies, e-books and apps. Not surprisingly, as many consumers get new smartphones, tablets, e-readers and digital content gift certificates for Christmas, they spend Christmas Day loading up their devices with new content." Back at the end of October, shares of Amazon were near $246 before things went wrong, falling over 16% after-hours from poor third quarter earnings. Amazon.com's Q3 EPS fell short of estimates, but the company's revenues came in-line with analyst predictions. The company reported EPS of 14 cents/share versus the 24 cents/share estimate and revenues of $10.88 billion versus the $10.93 billion estimate. EPS fell 72.5% while revenue climbed 43.9% from the same period last year. At that time, Amazon guided Q4 sales in the range of $16.45-18.65 billion. Current analyst estimates are for $18.18 billion, which are just off the high end of Amazon's guidance, while the comScore/Goldman Sachs suggestion of $17.86 billion falls basically at the mid-point, beneath consensus estimates. In Amazon's defense, the comScore report is just one set of data and it does not account for sales internationally, which Amazon has over 40% of its net sales derived from overseas commerce. Currently, shares of Amazon have rebounded slightly, only trading down 0.64% at $172.78.
Follow me on Twitter @bpilzner Sign up for a free subscription to the Weekly Radar - Benzinga's weekly newsletter highlighting technical levels and analysis for major markets for the week ahead.