(News Bulletin 247) – The online commerce specialist delivered quarterly results marked by an increase in its operating margins. Amazon Web Services also posted growth in line with expectations.

The Gafam results season has, overall, been half-baked. If Alphabet met market expectations, this was not the case for Apple, Microsoft and Meta.

Amazon, which published its third quarter accounts on Thursday evening, is, for its part, well on its way to achieving the best performance among American “big techs”. Its action soared 7% in pre-opening trading on Wall Street this Friday.

The e-commerce juggernaut delivered results that exceeded expectations on almost every level.

In the period from July to the end of September, Amazon generated revenues of $158.9 billion, up 11% year-on-year, while its earnings per share were $1.43 versus 96 cents. a year earlier.

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Profitability is increasing everywhere

According to an LSEG consensus cited by CNBC, analysts expected revenues of $157.2 billion and earnings per share of $1.14.

The company notably benefited from an acceleration in online sales, with total revenues of $61.4 billion, up 8% year-on-year, compared to 6% and 7% in the previous two quarters.

Its cloud computing services division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), recorded growth of 19% year-on-year to $27.5 billion. This division certainly remains behind Google Cloud (growth of 35% in the last quarter) and Azure (33%), Microsoft’s cloud division. But its performance is in line with the consensus, at $27.5 billion. Advertising revenues increased by 19% to $14.33 billion, again in line with expectations.

“The most remarkable element in Amazon’s results remains the surprising improvement in margins,” said Gil Luria of DA Davidson, quoted by Reuters. “Investors were worried about Amazon’s ability to maintain its margins and Amazon actually increased them,” he adds.

Amazon’s operating margin in North America increased from 4.9% to 5.9% in one year, while that internationally reached 3.6% while it was negative (0.3% ) a year earlier. At Amazon Web Services, profitability reached 38.1% compared to 30.3% a year earlier.

Towards a promising holiday season

This improvement in margins demonstrates that Amazon is controlling its costs while continuing to invest massively in its most dynamic businesses, such as the cloud.

“For the seventh consecutive quarter, Amazon reported operating profit above the high end of its guidance and the company has put in place a number of drivers for future margin expansion, including continued cost optimization within its order processing network as well as the continued evolution of the mix towards AWS and advertising revenue, activities with better margins,” explains Dan Ives of Wedbush.

Amazon also delivered its outlook for the fourth quarter, a pivotal period for the company since it corresponds to the end-of-year holidays.

The group said it expects revenues of between $181.5 billion and $188.5 billion, corresponding to growth of 7% to 11%, while operating profit is expected between $16 billion and $20 billion.

“As the holidays approach, we are excited about what we have in store for customers,” said Andy Jassy, ​​CEO of Amazon, quoted in a statement.