Amazon's first-quarter revenue, profit trounce estimates

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc reported first-quarter revenue and profit on Thursday that trounced analysts' estimates, driven by a surge in online shopping and higher demand for its cloud services.

Amazon, whose shares were up 7.1 percent in after-hours trading, forecast net sales of between $51 billion and $54 billion for the current quarter.

Net sales in North America, its biggest market, jumped 46.4 percent to $30.73 billion in the latest quarter.

Amazon, which reported it had over 100 million Prime subscribers last week, said its net sales rose to $51.04 billion from $35.7 billion, a year earlier, beating the average analyst estimate of $49.78 billion.

 

Revenue from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company's fast-growing cloud services business, soared 48.6 percent to $5.44 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $5.25 billion, according Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Amazon's total operating expenses rose 41.5 percent to $49.12 billion, as the company invests heavily into expanding its Prime program, creating original video content and building its warehouse and delivery infrastructure.

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)