Earlier today, Amazon revealed its 2014 first quarter earnings in a conference call, and the news for investors was quite good. Analysts had predicted revenue of $19.4 billion, however Amazon reported that revenue went beyond that to $19.74 billion. That figure is up 23% over last year’s $16.1 billion. Profits were $108 million, which translates to a dividend of $0.23 per share. That’s up up 27% from Q1 of last year.
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The second quarter might not be as rosy, though, as Q2 guidance shows Amazon predicting an operating loss of between $455 million to $55 million. Still, Amazon has been focused on growth for years now, so the news shouldn’t come as a shock to most of its investors. The company’s stock was up 2% in after hours trading on the earnings news.
Amazon has had a busy quarter, with the welcome earnings news coming on the heels of Amazon’s streaming deal with HBO that brings many of its classic original programming to Prime, as well as Amazon’s new Fire TV set-top streaming box, a piece of hardware that the company unveiled just weeks ago.
This points to Amazon making its video streaming service more of a priority as of late. During the conference call, an executive noted that “video streams on Prime Instant Video nearly tripled year over year,” and one can easily imagine that the new dedicated set-top Fire TV will only help those numbers to grow further.
While much has been said about the Amazon-HBO deal, it’s worth noting that the premium channel’s current favorites are not part of the list — one won’t find Girls, Newsroom, or Game of Thrones available via Amazon Prime Instant. HBO is clearly keeping its current moneymakers close while allowing its back catalog to be shared. Still, that back catalog is nothing to sneeze at, as it includes incredible series like Rome, The Sopranos, and the ridiculously excellent Band of Brothers.
Amazon’s CEO, though, is bullish on what it’s offering. “We get our energy from inventing on behalf of customers, and 2014 is off to a kinetic start,” said Jeff Bezos in a circulated press release after the call. Hopefully he can keep that energy flowing through Amazon — and through Fire TVs — through Q2.
Below are the raw figures captured from Amazon’s investors’ page.
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