Amazon profit jumps, stock soars

Online retailer trounces estimates, raises guidance and announces share buyback.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Amazon.com Tuesday reported earnings that beat Wall Street forecasts, raised its sales guidance and announced a share buyback - news that sparked a big rally in after-hours trading of its stock.

The world's biggest online retailer reported first-quarter earnings of 26 cents a share, up from 12 cents a share a year earlier. Analysts were looking for Amazon to earn 15 cents a share, according to Reuters.

Amazon (down $0.02 to $44.75, Charts, Fortune 500) stock jumped about 8.5 percent in after-hours trading after ending little changed in regular trading on Nasdaq.

Revenue rose 32 percent to $3.02 billion, the company said. Excluding gains from favorable exchange rates, net sales rose 29 percent.

Analysts polled by First Call were looking for a 28 percent rise in revenue, to $2.9 billion. It wasn't clear if First Call's number included foreign exchange differences.

Amazon said revenue in the second quarter should come in between $2.7 and $2.85 billion, on the high side of First Call estimates.

For the full year, Amazon predicted revenue of $13.4 to $14 billion. First Call's estimate was $13.4 billion.

The company also announced a stock buy back of $500 million.  Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.