Technology

Amazon set to report fourth-quarter earnings after the bell

Published

2 years ago

February 1, 2024

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco on June 8, 2022.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings Thursday after the closing bell.

Here’s what analysts are projecting:

Earnings per share: 80 cents, according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv
Revenue: $166.2 billion, according to LSEG
Amazon Web Services: $24.2 billion, according to StreetAccount
Advertising: $14.2 billion, according to StreetAccount

Amazon is expected to report a sizable spike in profits compared to last year’s holiday quarter, when the company was contending with higher costs tied to inflation, the war in Ukraine and supply chain constraints. At that time, Amazon was finishing up its slowest year of growth in the company’s history, with sales for the year increasing just 9.4%.

Since then, growth has reaccelerated and profits have rebounded, as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has slashed costs dramatically and consumer spending has proven resilient. The company laid off more than 27,000 employees between late 2022 and mid-2023, and it has continued to cut roles this year. In January, Amazon said it would let go of employees across units including Prime Video, MGM Studios, Twitch, Audible and Buy with Prime.

“This may be a signal that, similar to Meta, Amazon is continuing its Years of Efficiency into ’24,” analysts at Evercore wrote in a Monday note. The firm has an outperform rating on Amazon’s stock.

Shares of Amazon rallied 77% in 2023, as Wall Street applauded Jassy’s belt-tightening efforts. The stock is up almost 4% so far this year, while the S&P 500 has gained about 2% during the same stretch.

Analysts expect net income of $8.4 billion, or 80 cents per share, for the period ending Dec. 31, 2023, compared to $278 million, or 3 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue is projected to expand 11.4% during the quarter. Although that’s slower than the growth rate for the third quarter, it’s an acceleration from the year-ago period when sales climbed just over 8%.

The quarter will include results from the holiday shopping season and Amazon’s October Prime Day deals event. Holiday sales online and in brick-and-mortar stores rose 3.8% year over year to $964.4 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, coming in at the high end of its prior expectation of a rise between 3% and 4%.

Wall Street will be focusing on growth rates in Amazon’s cloud computing unit, where revenue is expected to increase roughly 13% year over year, which is slightly faster than the previous quarter, when it showed growth of 12%.

For the past year, growth in AWS has decelerated, as businesses trimmed their cloud spend. But Amazon executives signaled some improvement in last quarter’s earnings call, with Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky telling reporters in October that the company was “starting to see more and more new workloads come up.”

Analysts are optimistic that AWS will benefit from strong demand for generative artificial intelligence, as companies increasingly require more compute power and infrastructure to run AI models. In November, Amazon launched “Q,” an AI chatbot for businesses, as well as new Trainium chips for AI applications. It also operates Bedrock, a generative AI service for AWS customers.

Amazon’s other high-margin business, advertising, will also be a key area to watch, with revenue projected to grow 23% to $14.2 billion. This week, Amazon joined streaming peers such as Netflix, Disney‘s Hulu and Warner Bros. Discovery‘s Max by introducing ads to Prime Video programming.

Analysts at Citi, who have a buy rating on Amazon shares, forecast Prime Video ads to generate at least $5 billion of “incremental revenue over time,” the firm wrote in a Tuesday note.

Amazon will discuss the report on a conference call with analysts at 5:30 p.m. ET.

Technology

SpaceX aims for $800 billion valuation in secondary share sale, WSJ reports

Published

7 hours ago

December 6, 2025

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SpaceX aims for 0 billion valuation in secondary share sale, WSJ reports

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is initiating a secondary share sale that would give the company a valuation of up to $800 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

SpaceX is also telling some investors it will consider going public possibly around the end of next year, the report said.

At the elevated price, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor would be valued above ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which wrapped up a share sale at a $500 billion valuation in October.

SpaceX has been investing heavily in reusable rockets, launch facilities and satellites, while competing for government contracts with newer space players, including Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin. SpaceX is far ahead, and operates the world’s largest network of satellites in low earth orbit through Starlink, which powers satellite internet services under the same brand name.

A SpaceX IPO would include its Starlink business, which the company previously considered spinning out.

Musk recently discussed whether SpaceX would go public during Tesla‘s annual shareholders meeting last month. Musk, who is the CEO of both companies, said he doesn’t love running publicly traded businesses, in part because they draw “spurious lawsuits,” and can “make it very difficult to operate effectively.”

However, Musk said during the meeting that he wanted to “try to figure out some way for Tesla shareholders to participate in SpaceX,” adding, “maybe at some point, SpaceX should become a public company despite all the downsides.”

WATCH: What retail investors should know about OpenAI and SpaceX

Technology

Judge finalizes remedies in Google antitrust case

Published

8 hours ago

December 5, 2025

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Judge finalizes remedies in Google antitrust case

The logo for Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 17, 2021.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

A U.S. judge on Friday finalized his decision for the consequences Google will face for its search monopoly ruling, adding new details to the decided remedies.

Last year, Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search, and in September, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the Department of Justice.

That included the proposal of a forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser, which provides data that helps the company’s advertising business deliver targeted ads. Alphabet shares popped 8% in extended trading as investors celebrated what they viewed as minimal consequences from a historic defeat last year in the landmark antitrust case.

Investors largely shrugged off the ruling as non-impactful to Google. However some told CNBC it’s still a bite that could “sting.”

Mehta on Friday issued additional details for his ruling in new filings.

“The age-old saying ‘the devil is in the details’ may not have been devised with the drafting of an antitrust remedies judgment in mind, but it sure does fit,” Mehta wrote in one of the Friday filings.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously said it will appeal the remedies.

In August 2024, Mehta ruled that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act and held a monopoly in search and related advertising. The antitrust trial started in September 2023.

In his September decision, Mehta said the company would be able to make payments to preload products, but it could not have exclusive contracts that condition payments or licensing. Google was also ordered to loosen its hold on search data. Mehta in September also ruled that Google would have to make available certain search index data and user interaction data, though “not ads data.”

The DOJ had asked Google to stop the practice of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.

The judge’s September ruling didn’t end the practice entirely — Mehta ruled out that Google couldn’t enter into exclusive deals, which was a win for the company. Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. It’s lucrative for Apple and a valuable way for Google to get more search volume and users.

Mehta’s new details

In the Friday filings, Mehta wrote that Google cannot enter into any deal like the one it’s had with Apple “unless the agreement terminates no more than one year after the date it is entered.”

This includes deals involving generative artificial intelligence products, including any “application, software, service, feature, tool, functionality, or product” that involve or use genAI or large-language models, Mehta wrote.

GenAI “plays a significant role in these remedies,” Mehta wrote.

The judge also reiterated the web index data it will require Google to share with certain competitors.

Google has to share some of the raw search interaction data it uses to train its ranking and AI systems, but it does not have to share the actual algorithms — just the data that feeds them.” In September, Mehta said those data sets represent a “small fraction” of Google’s overall traffic, but argued the company’s models are trained on data that contributed to Google’s edge over competitors.

The company must make this data available to qualified competitors at least twice, one of the Friday filing states. Google must share that data in a “syndication license” model whose term will be five years from the date the license is signed, the filing states.

Mehta on Friday also included requirements on the makeup of a technical committee that will determine the firms Google must share its data with.

Committee “members shall be experts in some combination of software engineering, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, economics, behavioral science, and data privacy and data security,” the filing states.

The judge went on to say that no committee member can have a conflict of interest, such as having worked for Google or any of its competitors in the six months prior to or one year after serving in the role.

Google is also required to appoint an internal compliance officer that will be responsible “for administering Google’s antitrust compliance program and helping to ensure compliance with this Final Judgment,” per one of the filings. The company must also appoint a senior business executive “whom Google shall make available to update the Court on Google’s compliance at regular status conferences or as otherwise ordered.”

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.