Amazon profit beats expectations on booming sales

Amazon profit beats expectations on booming sales

Amazon on Thursday reported a quarterly profit that trounced market expectations, driven by strong sales helped by its annual Prime discount event. The tech giant said it made a profit of $6.7 billion in the recently ended quarter, eclipsing earnings forecasts. "It was another strong quarter of progress for Amazon," the company chief executive Andy Jassy said in an earnings release. Amazon shares were up more than 7 percent to $138.79 in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings figures. Net sales revenue at Amazon increased 11 percent to $134.4 billion, compared with $121.2 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, the earnings report showed.