For the second straight quarter, Amazon posted a profit, backed heavily by strong North American sales and growth to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. In Q3 2015, Amazon took in $79 million in net income, or earnings of $0.17 per share, far exceeding initial Thomson Reuters expectations of a quarterly loss of $0.13 per share.
Moreover, Amazon’s sales have increased 23% year-over-year to $25.4 billion in Q3, compared to the $20.6 billion total in the same period in 2014. North American sales rose 28% to $15 billion.
AWS took in $2.09 billion in revenue in Q3, rising 78% from $1.17 billion the previous year. AWS also reported a $521 million operating profit, which is an astronomical 432% rise in profit over last year’s totals.
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Stockholders responded well to the news about a second straight quarterly profit, as Amazon stock rose more than 10% upon the market closing on Oct. 23.
Looking ahead, the e-Commerce giant is forecasting a successful holiday season, expecting net sales between $33.5 billion and $36.75 billion, or growth of between 14% and 25% compared with Q4 2014. The top end of that range exceeds Wall Street estimates of approximately $35 billion in sales.
The company has already started preparing for increased demand, announcing this week it would hire 100,000 seasonal employees for the holiday period.
