Amazon’s stock rose in the immediate aftermath Thursday of the tech giant’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which delivered a rare of late bit of good news for investors via earnings.
Amazon beat Wall Street estimates for earnings, while revenue was right in line with projections, with $27.75 per share and $137.41 billion in revenue. Analysts had been expected EPS to be $3.58. Amazon reported a gain of nearly $12 billion from its investment in electric vehicle company Rivian.
Amazon’s stock was up by as much as 18% in after-hours trading, reversing a trend that saw many of its competitors’ stock prices take a massive dive after poor earnings results. Meta, Netflix, Spotify and Snap have all seen their share prices nosedive in the last week.
“A big thank you to employees across Amazon who overcame another quarter of COVID-related challenges and delivered for customers this holiday season,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. “Given the extraordinary growth we saw in 2020 when customers predominantly stayed home, and the fact that we’ve continued to grow on top of that in 2021, our Retail teammates have effectively operated in peak mode for almost two years. It’s been a tremendous effort, and I’m appreciative and proud of how hard our teams have worked to serve customers. As expected over the holidays, we saw higher costs driven by labor supply shortages and inflationary pressures, and these issues persisted into the first quarter due to Omicron. Despite these short-term challenges, we continue to feel optimistic and excited about the business as we emerge from the pandemic. When you combine how we’re staffing and scaling our fulfillment network to bring even faster delivery to more customers, the extraordinary growth of AWS with 40% year-over-year growth (and now a $71 billion revenue run rate), the addition of marquee new entertainment like ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ and ‘Thursday Night Football,’ and a plethora of new capabilities that we’re building in areas like Alexa, Ring, Grocery, Pharmacy, Amazon Care, Kuiper, and Zoox, there’s a lot to look forward to in the months and years ahead.”
For the first time in four years, Amazon is raising the price of its Prime membership. It will now be $139 for the year and $14.99 for those that want to pay monthly, up from $119 and $12.99.
Amazon attributed the price increase to its upcoming exclusive deal for the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” franchise, which begins this fall. Additional factors cited were continued expansion of Prime member benefits and the rise in wages and transportation costs.
The price change will go into effect on Feb. 18, 2022, and for current Prime members, the new prices will apply after March 25, 2022, on the date of their next renewal.