Amazon’s Bezos to Step Down as CEO, Jassy to Take Helm in Q3 By Investing.com

By Yasin Ebrahim

Invsting.com – Amazon.com said Tuesday that founder Jeff Bezos will step down as chief executive officer in the third quarter. The news comes as the e-commerce giant reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ forecasts, led by a pandemic-led surge in online shopping in North America. 

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares gained 1.10% in after-hours trade following the report.

Bezos will transition to the role of executive chair, while Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, will become CEO of Amazon.   

Amazon.com announced earnings per share of $14.09 on revenue of $125.6 billion. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $7.16 on revenue of $119.68 billion.

Net sales in North America rose to $75.35 billion, up from $53.67 billion in the the prior-year period, and beating a forecast for $57 billion.

Amazon Web Services, its fast-growing cloud revenue segment, grew to $12.74 billion from $9.95 billion.

For the first-quarter, the company guided net sales of between $100.0 billion and $106.0 billion, or to grow between 33% and 40% year-on-year, with about $2.0 billion of costs related to COVID-19.

Amazon.com shares are up 3% from the beginning of the year, still down 4.77% from its 52 week high of $3,552.25 set on September 2, 2020. They are outperforming the S&P 500 which is up 1.83% from the start of the year.

“Even after gaining more than 65% during the past 12 months, Amazon continues to be a solid growth pick. The factors that fuelled the 2020 rally are still in play, given the resurgence of the COVID-19 cases and an accelerated shift to e-commerce. If the company is able to contain costs, showing growth in its retail and  high-margin areas, such as cloud-computing, subscriptions and third-party sales, then we could see more upside in its share price,” Investing.com analyst Haris Anwar said.