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1. Q4 Performance Summary: Poor AWS performance and retail business exceeding expectations, pessimistic guidance for the next quarter
This quarter, Amazon's two major businesses, retail and AWS, saw a formal reversal.Revenue growth in the retail sector, which has always dragged down profits, exceeded expectations, and finally saw operating profit losses after several quarters of cost cuts, which became the main reason why this quarter's revenue growth rate exceeded expectations; however, the decline in revenue growth rate and profit margin of the AWS division, which has always been a profit center, exceeded expectations.
Amazon's fourth quarter revenue increased 9% year over year to 149.2 billion US dollars, higher than market expectations of 145.8 billion US dollars, a growth rate of more than 2%; NON GAAP earnings per share were 0.03 US dollars, lower than expectations of 0.14 US dollars; the retail sector other than AWS achieved revenue of 127.8 billion US dollars, up 6.8% year over year, 3.5 pct higher than market expectations. AWS business revenue increased 20% year over year to 21.4 billion US dollars, slightly lower than market expectations of 21.87 billion US dollars, and further slowed from 27.5% in the third quarter. The profit margin fell to 24.3%. The profit margin for the third quarter was 26.3%, which exceeded expectations.
At the same time, the first-quarter performance guidance given by Amazon is too sluggish. The revenue for the first quarter is expected to reach between 121 billion US dollars and 126 billion US dollars, and the year-on-year growth rate is between 4% and 8%...