- Amazon (NDAQ:AMZN) announced its financial results for its Q3 ended Sept. 30, 2024, reporting significant growth across key financial metrics.
- Amazon’s net sales increased by 11 per cent to US$158.9 billion, compared with US$143.1 billion in Q3 2023.
- Its annual Prime Big Deal Days shopping event set new records for sales and the number of items sold
- Amazon stock opened trading at US$199.00
Amazon (NDAQ:AMZN) announced its financial results for its Q3 ended Sept. 30, 2024, reporting significant growth across key financial metrics.
Financial highlights
- Net sales: Amazon’s net sales increased by 11 per cent to US$158.9 billion, compared with US$143.1 billion in Q3 2023. Excluding the US$0.2 billion unfavourable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, net sales still saw an 11 per cent increase.
- Operating income: Operating income rose to US$17.4 billion, up from US$11.2 billion in the same period last year.
- Net income: Net income surged to US$15.3 billion, or US$1.43 per diluted share, compared with US$9.9 billion, or $0.94 per diluted share, in Q3 2023.
Key drivers of growth
Amazon hailed its annual Prime Big Deal Days shopping event as a success, setting new records for sales and the number of items sold. The company also launched several innovative generative AI-powered features:
- Rufus: A generative AI expert shopping assistant, now available in Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
- AI shopping guides: These guides simplify product research by using generative AI to pair information about a product category with Amazon’s wide selection, making it easier for customers to find the right product.
- Project amelia: An AI assistant for sellers that provides tailored business insights to boost productivity and drive growth.
Q4 2024 guidance
Looking ahead, Amazon expects net sales to be between US$181.5 billion and US$188.5 billion, representing a growth of 7 per cent to 11 per cent compared with Q4 2023. This guidance includes an anticipated unfavourable impact of approximately 10 basis points from foreign exchange rates. Operating income is projected to be between US$16.0 billion and US$20.0 billion, compared with US$13.2 billion in Q4 2023.
Leadership perspective
“We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there’s so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we’ll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving,” Andy Jassy, Amazon’s president and CEO, said in a news release.
About Amazon.com
Amazon is the e-commerce and technology giant behind Prime, Amazon Web Services, Kindle, Amazon Echo and Alexa, Fire tablets and Amazon Studios. It strives to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, Earth’s best employer and Earth’s safest place to work.
Amazon stock (NDAQ:AMZN) opened trading up 6.5 per cent at US$199.00 and has risen 30.29 per cent since the year began.
Join the discussion: Find out what everybody’s saying about Amazon on the Amazon.com Inc. Bullboard, and check out the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. For full disclaimer information, please click here.
(Top photo: Adobe Stock)