From Seattle's own, GeekWire, February 1:
Amazon topped expectations for its holiday quarter, reporting record revenue of $169.9 billion, up 14% year-over-year, and earnings per share of $1.00.
Wall Street expected earnings of $0.80 per share and revenue of $166 billion.
Amazon shares were up more than 4% in after-hours trading.
The company’s cloud, advertising, and third-party seller services businesses met or exceeded estimates in Q4, while overall operating income increased to $13.2 billion.
It’s been a year since Amazon announced its largest layoffs ever, cutting 18,000 positions, then another 9,000 in March. The company continues to trim its headcount, with smaller cuts coming to Alexa, music, and other divisions.
“Recent workforce reductions signal continued cost discipline and reinforce commitment to margin expansion,” Wedbush analysts wrote in a recent report.
On the AI front, Amazon just today announced a new assistant called Rufus embedded in its mobile shopping app. Generative AI was the big theme at the AWS re:Invent conference in November....
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