Amazon Stock Jumps as Cloud Growth Fuels Blowout Quarter

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Amazon.com (AMZN) stock is up nearly 4% out of the gate Wednesday after the e-commerce giant disclosed higher-than-expected earnings and revenue for its first quarter.

In the three months ended March 31, Amazon's revenue increased 12.5% from the year-ago period to $143.3 billion and its earnings per share (EPS) more than tripled to 98 cents.

"It was a good start to the year across the business, and you can see that in both our customer experience improvements and financial results," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.

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The Q1 results beat analysts' expectations, which called for revenue of $142.5 billion and EPS of 83 cents, according to CNBC.

The performance of Amazon Web Services' (AWS), the company's cloud segment, was one of the brightest spots in the results, with sales up 17% year-over-year to $25 billion.

"The combination of companies renewing their infrastructure modernization efforts and the appeal of AWS's [artificial intelligence] AI capabilities is reaccelerating AWS's growth rate," Jassy said while also noting that the segment is now at a $100 billion annual revenue run rate.

"It's very early days in all of our businesses and we remain excited by how much more we can make customers' lives better and easier moving forward," Jassy said. Part of this is also the generative AI tools Amazon is developing and Jassy noted in the earnings call that the company is seeing "considerable momentum on the AI front where we've accumulated a multibillion-dollar revenue run rate already."

Is Amazon stock a buy, sell or hold?

Analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on the e-commerce giant. Indeed, Amazon is the highest-rated of all 30 Dow Jones stocks. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the consensus analyst target price for AMZN stock is $214.91, representing implied upside of nearly 20% to current levels. Additionally, the consensus recommendation is a Strong Buy.

Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Shyam Patil is one of those with a Positive (Buy) rating on Amazon. The analyst also has a $220 price target on the Magnificent 7 stock.

While Amazon is facing some macro headwinds, including the potential for slowing consumer spending, as well as increased costs related to generative AI investments, the company remains "a long-term secular grower underpinned by its strong e-commerce, cloud, and advertising businesses and remain Positive," Patil said in a May 1 report.

Joey Solitro is a freelance financial journalist at Kiplinger with more than a decade of experience. A longtime equity analyst, Joey has covered a range of industries for media outlets including The Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha, Market Realist, and TipRanks. Joey holds a bachelor's degree in business administration.