Shares of Amazon jump on 1Q earnings beat

SEATTLE (AP) - Shares of Amazon.com Inc. surged Thursday after the e-commerce powerhouse reported better-than-expected first-quarter results fueled by a 28 percent jump in revenue.

The Seattle-based company's net income totaled $513 million, or $1.07 per share, compared with a loss in the same period a year earlier. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 61 cents per share.

In a statement, CEO Jeff Bezos said sales of Amazon devices such as the Echo smart speaker and the Fire TV stick were strong, although the company does not break out specific sales figures.

Amazon's cloud-based services, called Amazon Web Services, remained another bright spot, with revenue up 64 percent to $2.57 billion.

The online retailer's revenue rose to $29.13 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Ten analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $27.94 billion.

For the current quarter ending in July, Amazon said it expects revenue in the range of $28 billion to $30.5 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $28.14 billion.

Amazon shares jumped $75.50, or 12 percent, to $677.50 in extended trading following the release of the earnings report.

Through the close of regular-session trading Thursday, the company's stock was down 11 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed almost 2 percent.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on AMZN at http://www.zacks.com/ap/AMZN

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