Amazon . com Inc. is expected to report strong profits Thursday after its midyear Prime Day event boosted sales, and its cloud computing and advertising units continued to grow.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant’s success in the pandemic comes as U.S. consumers increasingly meet their shopping, entertainment and work needs online, strengthening the power of the world’s largest technology companies.
Using its size and leverage, Amazon this year has looked to increase its foothold in non-retail industries, even as federal regulators continue to circle the company and scrutinize its growth and business plans.
Amazon is set to post second-quarter earnings after markets close Thursday. Analysts polled by FactSet on average predict $115.4 billion in quarterly revenue and per-share earnings of $12.28. The company in April said it expected second-quarter sales to be between $110 billion and $116 billion and operating income between $4.5 billion and $8 billion.
The retailer has been exceeding financial expectations since the start of the pandemic, which brought a flood of shoppers and new growth to the company’s e-commerce operations that it has been able to sustain. Still, analysts predict Amazon’s tremendous growth will slow down, as the economy reopens from the height of the pandemic, when it saw earnings nearly double.
