Amazon's Q1 Earnings Beat; Investors Disappointed in Outlook

Shares of Amazon.com AMZN are down more than 2 percent after hours Thursday following a better-than-expected first-quarter earnings report. Revenue, however, missed Wall Street's estimates. Investors in the stock are likely focusing on second-quarter guidance which appears to be conservative. The company posted quarterly earnings of $0.18 per share, down 37 percent from the same quarter last year when Amazon reported EPS of $0.28. Analysts on Wall Street were expecting Amazon to report EPS of just $0.09. Sales totaled $16.07 billion, missing the analyst estimate of $16.16 billion. Sales rose 22 percent year over year from $13.18 billion. Excluding a $302 million unfavorable impact from changes in forex, net sales were up 24 percent. Revenue within Amazon's North American segment rose 26 percent to just under $9.4 billion. International sales were also up; revenue in this segment rose 21 percent to $6.68 billion. The company said it is expecting second quarter revenue in the range of $14.5 billion to $16.2 billion. The Street is currently expecting next-quarter sales of $15.92 billion. Amazon is looking for a second-quarter loss of $340 million to a profit of $10 million.