Amazon finishes on the up but guidance disappoints

Online retail giant Amazon absolutely smashed both bottom and top line estimates out of the park on Thursday, but cautious guidance sent shares south in after-hours trading.

Amazon reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of $6.04 on revenues of $72.4bn - well ahead of the $5.65 and $71.61bn expected by analysts on Wall Street and 19.7% ahead of the same quarter a year earlier.

For the full year, Amazon revenues topped the $200bn milestone - maxing out at $232.9bn.

The Seattle-based firm revealed sales had increased in all but one of its five categories - physical stores, which is mostly made up of Whole Foods, saw a 3% decrease in revenues,

On the other hand, Amazon Web Services reported a 46% year-on-year increase to revenues - in line with previous quarters.

US sales grew just 18%, a sharp decline on the 42% growth reported last year, and international sales growth dropped from 29% to 15%.

For the first time in Amazon's history, cash and equivalents jumped 51% to $21bn.

Despite beating consensus estimates, Amazon told investors that it expects first-quarter revenues to be between $56bn and $60bn - short of the $60.8bn predicted by analysts, while net operating income was set to be somewhere in the range of $2.3bn to $3.3bn, ahead of the previous year but short of what analysts and investors had hoped for.

As of 2230 GMT, Amazon shares had slipped 2.14% in after-hours trading to $1,681.90 each.