Amazon Q3 2020 Earnings – a Bumper Quarter Characterized by a Massive EPS Beat

Rohail Saleem
Amazon

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), a veritable titan in the e-commerce sphere, has generated a return of over 90 percent relative to the low of $1,676.61 that the stock hit back in March. Today, the company is in the limelight as it gears up to reveal its earnings for the third quarter of 2020.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Financial Scorecard

For the three months that ended on the 30th of September 2020, Amazon earned $96.1 billion in revenue, exceeding consensus expectations by 3.8 percent and registering an annual increase of 37 percent. This compares with $88.9 billion that the company earned in the second quarter of 2020.

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Revenue Comparison
Revenue
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Q3 2019
70
Q2 2020
88
Consensus
92
Actual
96

(All figures are in billions of dollars)

As far as Amazon’s business segments are concerned, Third-party sellers registered the biggest jump in growth.

Segmental Revenue Comparison
Q3 2019
Q3 2020
0
9
18
27
36
45
54
0
9
18
27
36
45
54
Online Stores
35
48
Physical Stores
4
3
3rd Party Sellers
13
20
Subscription Services
4
6
Amazon Web Services
8
11
Other (Ads)
3
5

(All figures are in billions of dollars)

A geographical breakdown of Amazon’s revenue is as follows:

Geographical Segmentation of Revenue
Q3 2019
Q3 2020
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
North America
42
59
International
18
25
AWS
8
11

(All figures are in billions of dollars)

Moreover, Amazon earned $29.5 billion in Free Cash Flow on a trailing 12-month basis.

Free Cash Flow Comparison
Free Cash Flow
0
6
12
18
24
30
36
0
6
12
18
24
30
36
Q3 2019
23
Q2 2020
31
Q3 2020
29

(All figures are in billions of dollars)

Finally, the company earned $12.37 in non-GAAP diluted EPS, exceeding consensus expectations by a whopping 68 percent.

EPS Comparison
EPS
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
Q3 2019
4
Q2 2020
10
Consensus
7
Actual
12

(All figures are in dollars)

Amazon noted in its earnings release:

"We’re seeing more customers than ever shopping early for their holiday gifts, which is just one of the signs that this is going to be an unprecedented holiday season. Big thank you to our employees and selling partners around the world who’ve been busy getting ready to deliver for customers this holiday.”

As far as projections are concerned, Amazon expects to earn between $112 billion and $121 billion in revenue and between $1.0 billion and $4.5 billion in operating income during the fourth quarter of 2020.

Investors have reacted positively to Amazon’s earnings announcement with the stock posting a gain of around 1 percent in the after-hours trading.

Source

Today’s development comes amid concerns surrounded Amazon’s recent Prime Day event. As per a recent investment note published by Citi analyst Jason Bazinet, Amazon eschewed to include the customary "biggest day ever" flourish in its press release, choosing to describe the event only as “record-setting”. According to Bazinet, the delay of the event from July to October – and the attendant proximity to the holiday season – along with a pandemic-driven shift in spending patterns may be partly to blame for the flat performance. On the other hand, Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion took a decidedly optimistic route when he postulated that Prime Day sales increased by 49 percent on an annual basis to $10.6 billion.

Rohail Saleem Photo

About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.

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