Amazon Q1 Results Top Wall Street View

(RTTNews) - Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Thursday reported a strong increase in profit for the first quarter, as revenues grew 17 percent reflecting strong performance at cloud business. Earnings and revenues for the quarter trounced Wall Street estimates.

Seattle, Washington-based Amazon reported first-quarter profit of $3.56 billion or $7.09 per share, up from $1.63 billion or $3.27 per share last year. On average, 41 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $4.72 per share for the quarter.

Amazon's sales for the quarter jumped 17 percent to $59.70 billion from $51.04 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $59.65 billion for the quarter.

Sales from North America jumped 17 percent to $35.81 billion from $30.73 billion last year, while international sales rose 9 percent to $16.19 billion. Meanwhile, revenues of Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud service division, surged 41 percent to $7.70 billion.

Looking forward to the second quarter, the company expects sales of $59.5 billion to $63.5 billion. Analysts currently estimate revenues of $62.37 billion.

AMZN closed Thursday's trading at $1,902.25, up $0.50 or 0.03%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $4.49 or 0.24% in the after-hours trade.