Amazon Q4 Earnings Highlights: Revenue Beat, EPS Miss, Thursday Night Football, The Lord Of The Rings, Cloud Growth And More

E-commerce leader Amazon.com AMZN reported fourth-quarter earnings after the market close Thursday. Here are the key highlights.

What Happened: Amazon reported fourth-quarter net sales of $149.2 billion, up 9% year-over-year. The total came in ahead of a Street estimate of $145.45 billion, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

The company reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of 3 cents, which came in shy of a Street estimate of 17 cents.

Sales in North America were $93.4 billion, up 13% year-over-year. International segment sales were $34.5 billion in the fourth quarter, down 8% year-over-year. The company’s AWS business had sales of $21.4 billion in the fourth quarter, up 20% year-over-year.

Amazon had fiscal 2022 revenue of $514 billion, up 9% year-over-year. For the full year, North America sales were $315.9 billion, up 13% year-over-year. International segment sales were $118 billion for the full fiscal year, down 8%. AWS full year sales were $80.1 billion, up 29% year-over-year.

“Our relentless focus on providing the broadest selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery drover customer demand in our Stores business during the fourth quarter that exceeded our expectations - and we’re appreciative of all our customers who turned to Amazon this past holiday season,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said.

The company said it had a record-breaking holiday season in 2022, including its biggest Thanksgiving-through-Cyber Monday holiday shopping weekend ever.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was the most watched Amazon Original series in every region in the world, with over 24 billion minutes streamed and 100 million viewers.

The success of the show led to more Amazon Prime sign-ups during its launch window than any previous Prime Video content.

“Thursday Night Football” saw strong viewership in the 18 to 34 demographic, marking the youngest median age of any NFL broadcast package since 2013. The average audience for “Thursday Night Football” games was 11.3 million viewers. Amazon had four of the TNF broadcasts rank in the top 100 primetime telecasts of 2022, a first for a streaming company.

AWS growth continued with new partner wins and the launch of AWS Regions in Spain and Switzerland and a second Region in India. AWS now has 96 Availability Zones from 30 geographic regions globally. The company plans on launching 15 additional Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions.

Related Link: Trading Strategies For Amazon Stock Before And After Q4 Earnings

What’s Next: Amazon is calling for first quarter revenue to be in a range of $121 billion to $126 billion, up 4% to 8%, respectively. The revenue estimate from analysts for the first quarter is $125.1 billion, according to Benzinga Pro data.

The company is guiding for first-quarter operating income to be between zero and $4 billion in the first quarter, compared to $3.7 billion in the prior year.

“In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon,” Jassy said.

The CEO said total market share in the global retail and IT still reside in physical stores and on-premise datacenters. Amazon believes it can flip some of the customers and partners, which could lead to “significant growth in the coming years.”

“When you factor in our investments and innovation in several other broad customer experiences (streaming entertainment, customer-first healthcare, broadband satellite connectivity), there’s additional reason to feel optimistic about what the future holds.”

AMZN Price Action: Amazon shares are down 3.92% to $108.48 in after-hours trading Thursday. Shares were up 7% during the regular trading session and are were up 30% year-to-date prior to the earnings report.

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