Amazon Blows Away Quarterly Expectations, Shares Rocket 11%

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. skyrocketed 11% in after-hours trade Thursday, following the company's much stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings. The company swung to a profit in the quarter, with net income coming in at $513 million, or $1.07 a share, after a loss of $57 million, or 12 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue climbed 28% year-over-year. Analysts on average were calling for earnings of 58 cents on sales of $28 billion, according to FactSet. The company forecast sales for the current quarter between $28 billion and $30.5 billion, compared with the consensus estimate of $28.3 billion. In a statement, CEO Jeff Bezos attributed the quarter's gains to hardware, with Amazon selling twice as many Fire tablets than in the same quarter last year. However, the company does not breakout revenue from hardware specifically. Sales of Amazon Web Services grew to $2.57 billion during the quarter from $1.56 billion last year.