Amazon set to report earnings amid recession fears

Amazon (AMZN) reported its financial results after the closing bell on Thursday, beating analysts’ expectations on revenue. The stock soared 12% higher in after-market trading.

Still, Amazon also reported a net loss of $2 billion, which it attributes to its investment in electric vehicle company Rivian (RIVN). Here are the most significant numbers from Amazon’s earnings today, as compiled by Bloomberg:

The e-commerce giant also reported better than expected guidance for next quarter of $125 billion to $130 billion versus $126.5 billion.

“Despite continued inflationary pressures in fuel, energy, and transportation costs, we’re making progress on the more controllable costs we referenced last quarter, particularly improving the productivity of our fulfillment network,” Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, said in a statement following earnings.

What’s key to Amazon’s future

Amazon’s cloud business is key to the company’s future. The cloud landscape that Amazon’s competing in is in flux – Microsoft (MSFT) saw revenue for its cloud computing service, Azure, jump 40% year-over-year when it reported earnings earlier this week.

Fears of recession also could threaten AWS’s growth in the medium-term. For instance, analysts at Mizuho Securities — James Lee and Wei Fang — worry that recession fears will cause corporate spending on cloud services to decline in the foreseeable future, a shift that could negatively affect AWS, according to a July 20 note.

The data on a possible recession doesn’t look great – the economy contracted for the second straight quarter in Q2, data from the Commerce Department showed Thursday.

It’s a dicey time for tech, and earnings season has only continued to bear that out. On Wednesday, Facebook-owner Meta Platforms (META) reported its first-ever year-over-year revenue drop and, earlier this week, both Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) reported earnings that didn’t meet Wall Street’s expectations. Although both Microsoft and Google particularly have their bright spots, this round of earnings season has been relatively brutal for the tech sector.

Story continues

Amid the tech rout, Amazon’s been in a moment of profound transition internally. CEO Andy Jassy took on the company’s top job just last year, while long-serving consumer head Dave Clark recently stepped down to join logistics company Flexport.

Allie Garfinkle is a senior tech reporter at Yahoo Finance. Find her on twitter @agarfinks.

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