Amazon Just Reported A Profit And Investors Freaked Out With Record High Share Prices

October 22, 2015

Amazon is typically not a profitable company. It’s not that Amazon can’t turn a profit, but instead, it typically throws everything it earns, plus some, into expanding its already massive operations.

On Thursday Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos threw investors a little surprise party, announced that the company made $ 73 million on $ 25.4 billion in sales last quarter.

Sure it’s not a huge margin, but it was completely unexpected and it sent shares soaring to a new high.

Shares surged 10% in after-hours trading, soaring into record territory well above $ 600 a share.

The previous high at Amazon was $ 580.

Amazon’s sales rose 23% and would have increased by 30% had the dollar not gained so much strength in recent months.

Amazon’s “Web Services” cloud unit posted a half-a-billion-dollar profit this past quarter, more than quintupling that unit’s earnings from last quarter.

AWS is on pace to report $ 7.3 billion in revenue for 2015.

On a conference call with investors, Amazon said it had 294 million customers on the quarter, up 17% from a year ago.

Amazon is now the most valuable retailer in the world, passing Walmart which continues to suffer.

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