Amazon

By Dan Gallagher Big tech is having a spending party this year, and the biggest tech of all won’t be sitting it out. It helps that Amazon.com’s investors have been there before. The sector’s sales leader posted strong first-quarter results on Tuesday afternoon. Revenue growth beat Wall Street’s targets across nearly all of the company’s segments, while operating income more than tripled year over year to a new high of $15.3 billion, beating analyst estimates by 36%. That put Amazon’s operating margin above 10% for the first time in the company’s history, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Investors weren’t fazed by Amazon’s projection for revenue and earnings growth in the second quarter being a bit below Wall Street’s projections. That has become commonplace for a company known to issue conservative forecasts; Amazon’s operating income projection has been below analysts’ consensus forecasts for nine of the past 12 […]

Amazon.com (AMZN) said Monday that it made a record number of same-day or next-day deliveries to Prime members during the first three months of 2024. The company said it fulfilled over two billion orders the same or next day to subscribers of its $139 per year service around the globe. “In March, nearly 60% of Prime member orders arrived the same or next day across the top 60 largest US metro areas, and we delivered three out of four items the same or next day in London, Tokyo, and Toronto,” Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said in a statement Monday.

Amazon.com’s (AMZN) retail margins, advertising revenue, and Amazon Web Services growth are likely to drive a Q1 beat, but the company is likely to face headwinds in Q2, BofA Securities said in a Monday note. “We expect a 1Q beat, and while 2Q set up has some unusual q/q hurdles, we expect positive 1Q metrics and call commentary to be constructive,” said the investment firm. BofA Securities noted that positives for Q1 include Prime Video ads, improving AWS demand and AI traction, and greater-than-expected retail margin expansion, among others. But while BAC aggregated credit and debit card and Bloomberg Second Measure data pointed to eCommerce upside in Q1, this could slow in Q2 because of certain holiday sales in the first quarter, the investment firm added. BofA Securities lowered its Q2 estimate for the company, saying recent sale events could have pulled forward some some demand for the period. The

BofA Securities analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating on Amazon.Com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a price target of $204. Post expects Amazon’s first-quarter earnings to reflect positive trends with a revenue forecast of $143 billion, closely aligning with market expectations. The focus will be on potential upside from AWS and advertising and, according to the analyst, a possible retail segment outperformance. For AWS, a quarter-over-quarter growth of $545 million and a 16% year-over-year increase are likely slightly ahead of the market’s 15% expectation. Operating profit will likely hit $11.5 billion, with a cautious eye on a possible $12 billion prediction by others. Looking ahead to the second quarter, he adjusted revenue expectations by $1.5 billion to $149.9 billion, considering the recent U.S. dollar depreciation and potential demand shifts due to seasonal sales events. Despite these adjustments, he maintained an optimistic outlook for Amazon’s continued growth in eCommerce, bolstered by data indicating a slight

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: We lift our 12-month target from $198 to $221, calculated using an EV/EBITDA multiple of 17x (was 16x) against our 2024 adj-EBITDA of $141.8B (up from $137.0B) vs. the 12x-30x historical range. We lift our 2024 adj-EPS estimate to $6.85 from $6.45 and 2025’s to $8.53 from $7.18. Our upwardly revised estimates reflect margin expansion opportunities in 2024, driven by continued retail efficiencies (e.g., supply chain regionalization benefits), AWS growth reacceleration (e.g., GenAI investments), and robust advertising growth (e.g., Prime Video ads introduced in January). We see GAAP operating margins rising from 6.4% in 2023 to 9.4% in 2024, above the current 8.5% consensus, with free cash flow likely exceeding $70B (up from $37B in 2023). Risks include a slower consumer spending environment and lumpy AWS growth,

Amazon.com Said On Track To Launch First Production Satellites In 2024.

Amazon.com’s (AMZN) new “cost to serve” model highlights the potential for “significant upside” to base case estimates for the e-commerce giant, Morgan Stanley in a report emailed Monday. The new model shows “material upside to retail profit and gives us increased confidence” in the company’s ability to deliver more than $100 billion in earnings before interest and taxes in 2026, Morgan Stanley said. Morgan Stanley raised Amazon’s price target to $215 from $200 and kept the overweight rating. It also affirmed Amazon as a “top pick,” saying it’s “encouraged by the multiyear, efficiency based cash flow story.” “Our new breakdown of retail cost to serve (which includes shipping, fulfillment, payment processing, inbound shipping, returns, and inventory shrinkage costs) highlights how early it is in [Amazon’s] retail profitability improvement efforts,” the report said. Comments by Amazon’s management provided a “compass to follow and a path toward $10-$11 of ’26 FCF/share,” the

Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski maintains Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a Overweight and raises the price target from $211 to $217.

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: Today, AMZN raised its investment in AI startup Anthropic by $2.75 billion, bringing its total stake to $4 billion after an initial $1.25 billion investment last September. As part of this partnership, Anthropic will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider and leverage AWS’s Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy future foundational AI models. These models are now available on Amazon’s Bedrock platform, which also hosts large language models from other major AI companies like AI21 Labs, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, and Stability AI, as well as Amazon’s own models. Earlier this month, Anthropic released the Claude 3 model family, which includes Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus. Claude 3 Opus is the most intelligent chatbot of

Amazon.com’s (AMZN) online pharmacy is reaping the benefits of demand for anti-obesity drugs in the US, the Financial Times reported, citing John Love, the head of the business. Drugs such as Eli Lilly’s (LLY) Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) Wegovy would create “a lot of revenue” for Amazon Pharmacy, said Love, the division’s general manager and vice president, according to the report. Both drugs are available directly through Amazon’s website, the FT said. Earlier in March, Eli Lilly and Amazon Pharmacy partnered to deliver widely used prescription drugs through the LillyDirect consumer services. The drugs include Eli Lilly’s obesity, diabetes and migraine headache medicines. Amazon said Tuesday it started same-day delivery for prescription medication in New York and greater Los Angeles using e-bikes, electric vans and drones.

Truist analyst Youssef Squali reiterated a Buy rating on Amazon.Com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) with a price target of $195. Based on his tracking of a proxy for U.S. revenue growth and overall positive market trends, the analyst remained constructive on Amazon with two weeks to go in the quarter. Squali’s Truist Card Data shows that U.S. revenue is tracking ahead of the consensus of $85.0 billion and closer to $87.0 billion (+13% year-on-year), driven by improving M/M demand trends in February and so far in March. Amid a resilient economy, he noted Amazon continues to gain share, enhancing its value proposition and launching its first-ever U.S. Big Spring Sale this week, a six-day sales event with deep discounts, which should drive incremental demand and position Amazon strongly into the first quarter’s end. On a consolidated basis, for the first quarter, Squali expected total revenues of $143.1 billion (+12.3% Y/Y), slightly ahead of the consensus