Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is set to release its third-quarter earnings report after the markets close on Thursday. E-commerce has been in full swing for only about a decade, ushered in by broadband and the genius of Jeff Bezos. With this earnings report, we are looking at the next chapter.
The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are $0.78 in earnings per share (EPS) and $32.69 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $25.36 billion in revenue.
In a recent survey from Deloitte, it was noted that consumers are more likely to shop online than they are to visit popular brick-and-mortar locations such as discount/value stores and traditional department stores. While the internet has been a top shopping destination for years, this season it runs away as the venue of choice. And Amazon is, generally speaking, the preferred venue online.
Online holiday shopping is likely to take some share from popular store formats both big and small. Fewer people plan to visit standalone big-box retail stores. This number dropped from 63% to 59% this year in the Deloitte survey. Also the number of consumers who plan to visit traditional malls this year fell slightly from 53% to 50%. Shoppers who plan to visit independent stores that are not in a mall dropped four percentage points to 38%.
Prior to the release of the earnings report, some analysts weighed in on Amazon:
- MKM Partners reiterated a Buy rating with a $995 price target.
- Citigroup reiterated a Buy rating with a $975 price target.
- Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a Buy rating with a $1,000 price target.
- Canaccord Genuity reiterated a Buy rating with an $825 price target.
- Wedbush reiterated an Outperform rating with a $900 price target.
- Nomura reiterated a Buy rating with a $950 price target.
- Goldman Sachs has a Buy rating with a $920 price target.
- Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating with a $950 price target.
- Macquarie has a Buy rating with a $935 price target.
- Robert Baird reiterated an Outperform rating.
So far in 2016, Amazon has outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up about 22%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up 33%.
Shares of Amazon were trading at $823.95 on Thursday, with a consensus analyst price target of $920.02 and a 52-week trading range of $474.00 to $847.21.
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