Amazon surges 9% on upbeat guidance, Q2 results beat; analysts bulled-up

Investing.com — Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) reported second-quarter results that topped analysts’ estimates and delivered upbeat guidance for Q3 as growth in its cloud business topped estimates.

Amazon.com rose more than 8% in pre-market Friday trading following the report.

Amazon reported Q2 of $0.65 on revenue of $134.4 billion, beating estimates of $0.35 on revenue of $131.45B. Net sales in North America rose 11% to $82.5B year-on-year in Q2.

Amazon Web Services, its fast-growing cloud revenue segment, grew 12%, to $22.1B, ahead of estimates of 10.2%. The cloud segment accounted for 70% of Amazon’s operating profit in Q2.

“Our AWS growth stabilized as customers started shifting from cost optimization to new workload deployment,” the company said.

For the third quarter, the company expects revenue of $138B to $143B, beating Wall Street estimates of $138.28B. Operating income for Q3 was guided in a range of $5.5B to $8.5B.

Amazon didn’t provide segment guidance on the earnings call.

Bernstein analysts hiked the price target by $20 to $175 per share.

“This print marks a defining moment in Andy Jassy’s 2-year tenure at the helm. Amazon fired on all cylinders: AWS finally stabilizing and now a coiled spring; Retail performance hanging in with a weakened consumer; N. American retail margins are back to pre-pandemic levels and accelerating alongside compressing fulfillment windows — impressive; and aggregate operating profits are up and to the right,” they said in a client note.

BofA analysts also lifted the price target by $20 (new PT of $174) ahead of the expected AWS acceleration.

“Amazon is reaping rewards from (at least) a year’s worth of retail cost improvement efforts, with US regionalization now driving margins higher. We expect several more quarters of margin benefits from increasing retail efficiency (2Q headcount still down y/y), and with AWS seemingly poised to accelerate (end of Cloud spending optimization cycle amidst easing comps), Amazon remains our top stock in sector,” analysts wrote.

Additional reporting by Senad Karaahmetovic