Earnings Preview For Amazon.com (AMZN)

Amazon.com AMZN is expected to report its Q1 results for the current year on Tuesday, April 26, after the markets close. Analysts expect its earnings per share to be $0.61, down 7.6% from previous year's level of $0.66. Analysts have maintained their expectations stable in the past two months, after significantly lowering it from the $0.76 level three months ago. Amazon.com is the largest online retailer in the United States, based in Seattle. It is a customer-centric company for three primary customer sets: consumers, sellers and enterprises. In addition, the company generates revenue through other marketing and promotional services, such as online advertising, and co-branded credit card agreements. Amazon.com operates in two segments: North America and International. The company serves consumers through its retail Websites, and focus on selection, price, and convenience. It designs its Websites to enable products to be sold by it and by third parties across dozens of product categories. It also manufactures and sells the Kindle e-reader. In February 2010, Amazon.com acquired Touchco, a touch screen technology company. Recent internet problems (ex: Amazon's Web Services unit went down last week) will not influence the company's Q1 results, but might have a negative impact on the mood of investors. Earnings per share in this quarter is expected to be down 33% on the previous quarter, bringing further skepticism to investors. Amazon's shares are, however, up 1.73% in the last five days and were trading at $185.89 at the end of last week. Investor's optimism might be due to Amazon's record of beating analysts' expectations on three quarterly earnings reports last year.