Amazon Nears New Record High After Sales Rise 34% In Q3

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN shares soared to new record highs after reporting a third-quarter sales beat, where revenues were up 34 percent in the quarter.

Amazon’s turned in earnings of 52 cents per share, the same EPS as last year's third quarter. Sales came in $1.7 billion higher than analyst estimates at $43.7 billion.

"Because Alexa’s brain is in the AWS cloud, her new abilities are available to all Echo customers, not just those who buy a new device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. "And it's working — customers have purchased tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices, given Echo devices over 100,000 5-star reviews, and active customers are up more than 5x since the same time last year. With thousands of developers and hardware makers building new Alexa skills and devices, the Alexa experience will continue to get even better."

The e-commerce giant issued fourth-quarter guidance of $56 billion - $60.5 billion in sales, and expects operating income to fall in the $300 million-$1.65 billion range in Q4.

Amazon were trading up more than 8 percent at $1,050 in the after-hours session. Click here for the full earnings release.

The stock hit an all-time closing high of $1,052.80 in July.

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