Amazon Beats Wall Street Q1 Forecasts As Advertising Growth Continues Apace

Dade Hayes

April 30, 2024 at 4:46 p.m.·2 min read

Amazon beat Wall Street forecasts for profit and revenue in the first quarter as advertising continued to grow at a healthy clip.

Net income increased to 98 cents per share on a diluted basis, up from 31 cents in the year-ago quarter. Total revenue reached $143.3 billion, up 13%. Both metrics were about 15% ahead of analysts’ consensus outlook.

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Advertising services, a category that includes Prime Video, increased 24% to $11.8 billion. As part of a broader push, the tech giant began running ads on Prime Video scripted originals earlier this year. Already, it had built an ad business on its Freevee service as well as gamer-centric Twitch. Live sports, a bedrock of the overall Prime Video strategy, is also a potent vehicle for advertisers. As a symbol of its stepped-up commitment to sponsors, Amazon this year shifted its annual presentation to ad buyers out of the NewFronts period and into the main upfronts week, taking a spot alongside media giants as well as Netflix and YouTube.

“Our advertising efforts continue to benefit from the growth of our stores and Prime Video businesses,” CEO Andy Jassy said in the earnings release.

Amazon shares, which have hit a choppy period after growing steadily in the first two months of 2024, gained 3% in after-hours trading after the earnings report, following a slide of 3% during the regular trading day.

One notable blemish in the quarterly report was a forecast by the company for second-quarter sales below what analysts had expected. The underperformance was chalked up to the likely meager appetite for cloud services by corporate customers under pressure to restrain costs.

MORE to come …

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