'The global leader in cloud computing:' Here's what Wall Street is saying about Amazon's impressive quarter
Amazon's fourth-quarter earnings report topped analyst expectations as its web services business continued to explode. Shares soared 6% on the news, and are trading north of $1,450 Friday.
The ecommerce behemoth posted earnings of $3.75 share, beating the expected $1.83 by a wide margin. Revenue of $60.5 billion topped the $59.85 billion that Wall Street was anticipating. Amazon Web Services posted sales of $5.1 billion, up 44.6% year-over-year.
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Amazon's impressive report has Wall Street analysts excited. They see AWS as a key driver of the company's future growth while there seems to be minimal concern about the tech giant's advertising and ecommerce businesses.
Here's what the analysts on Wall Street are saying:
Morgan Stanley: BULLISH
Rating: Overweight
Price Target: $1,500
Comment: "We see AMZN's ability to invest and execute in new categories (expanding the TAM as they have been), leading to faster and more sustained gross profit growth."
UBS: BULLISH
Rating: Buy
Price Target: $1,620
Comment: "We continue to reiterate our stance that Amazon is a core holding to gain exposure to secular growth trends in eCommerce (driven by geographic expansion & category expansion), cloud computing media consumption, digital advertising & AI voice assistants."
Davidson: BULLISH
Rating: Buy
Price Target: $1,800
Comment: "Considering the outperformance in AWS and third-party unit sales, which we believe represent two of highest margin businesses, we were not surprised by the better-than-expected adj. EBITDA and EPS. Amazon faces significant succession risk. AWS accounts for a majority of its revenue growth and profits, and is facing increasing competitive pressure from Google and Microsoft."
BMO: BULLISH
Rating: Outperform
Price Target: $1,600
Comment: "AMZN remains our Top Pick. We continue believe there remains a large runway for growth {in AWS}, particularly given the rate at which the company is rolling out new services and features."
Oppenheimer: BULLISH
Rating: Outperform
Price Target: $1,650
Comment: "The company continues to gain share of global ecommerce with its deep product selection, low-cost express delivery through its Prime program, and breakthrough success of Kindle, Prime Video and Amazon Music. AMZN's Web Services segment is now the global leader in cloud computing, and has significant value."
Macquarie: BULLISH
Rating: Outperform
Price Target: $1,750
Comment: "The growth in Prime members, sales of Echo and Fire devices, execution at Whole Foods, initiatives in private label, AWS growth, India, and more expansion of Prime benefits will all be key drivers in ’18 and beyond."
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