Amazon lifts quarterly earnings, outlook

The news: Amazon.com easily beat analyst forecasts for its third quarter, buoyed by rising sales in its retail and cloud computing units, and predicted a jump in fourth-quarter revenue and profit.

The numbers: The world's biggest cloud provider and online retailer said revenue in the third quarter rose 13% to USD143.1 billion ($226 billion) against analyst expectations of USD141.41 billion. Net income rose to USD9.9 billion from USD2.87 billion a year earlier. Amazon shares rose 3% in after-hours trade.

The context: The company's fortunes are, in particular, tied to those of its cloud-computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has long been a major source of profit but saw growth slow down in earlier quarters. It has sought to counter the competition from Google and Microsoft by investing up to USD4 billion in chatbot-maker Anthropic and touting an AI service drawing thousands of users. In retail, it has reorganised its delivery network to locate goods closer to shoppers, letting it fulfil orders faster than before, and more cheaply. It expects a jump in fourth-quarter revenue and profit, boosted by a holiday marketing blitz, faster delivery and improving outlook for its cloud division.