Instant Reaction: Amazon Gives Weak Forecast on Trade Concerns

Bloomberg Surveillance

Bloomberg

Business News, News, Investing, Business

3.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Amazon.com gave a weaker-than-expected forecast for operating profit in the current quarter, pointing toward tariffs and trade policies that may cause consumers to pull back on spending. The world’s largest online retailer projected operating profit of $13 billion to $17.5 billion, compared with an average estimate of $17.8 billion. Sales will be $159 billion to $164 billion in the period ending in June, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts, on average, expected $161.4 billion.

Amazon shares have fallen about 13% this year as Wall Street weighs the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a retail operation that sources much of its goods from China. Investors are generally bullish on the company’s efforts to become a major force in artificial intelligence, but there are concerns that Amazon’s prodigious spending on data centers may not translate into meaningful sales growth any time soon.

Amazon Web Services, the largest seller of rented computing power, reported first-quarter sales gained 17% to $29.3 billion, in line with analysts’ estimates. It was the unit’s slowest growth in a year.
For instant reaction and analysis, hosts Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec speak with:

Bloomberg Technology co-host Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg Intelligence senior US e-commerce and retail analyst Poonam Goyal

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	How will innovations such as AI and quantum computing shape business and finance?
0:06.1	At Bloomberg Tech, more than 400 C-suite corporate technologists, engineers, investors,
0:11.7	VCs, and startup founders will come together to discuss the implications these advancements have on your world,
0:18.1	your wallet, and the future.
0:20.2	Join us June 4th and 5th in San Francisco.
0:23.0	Learn more at Bloomberg Live.com slash TechSF, presenting sponsor InvescoQQQ.
0:32.3	Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
0:38.8	This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg.
0:42.9	Instant reaction and analysis from our 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world.
0:49.5	Looking at shares of Amazon in the after hours, one number that really sticks out to everybody. Second
0:54.7	quarter operating income outlook misses. 13 billion dollars to 17 and a half billion dollars. The
1:00.1	estimate was for 17.82 billion dollars. Let's get into it with Caroline Hyde. She's the co-host of
1:06.3	Bloomberg technology on Bloomberg TV each day at 11 Wall Street time. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive
1:11.9	Brokers Studio. Caroline, typically we'd be talking about AWS in any other quarter. That's crazy.
1:19.2	That's not at all. I mean, for years, that's what we'd do. AWS, that's what we care about. That's where the
1:23.5	margins are. But then you have Liberation Day, so-called Liberation Day. And now all
1:28.0	anybody cares about is who's paying for these tariffs. But I suppose there's also still the
1:32.6	focus on margins. The reason we care so much about AWS is it's the profit driver. Right. But we're
1:37.2	now worrying about a profit issue here with an operating income number coming in well below
1:41.8	expectations, that breadth of guidance that they give us,
1:45.5	that almost like four billion wiggering, that's very normal. Is that operating income guidance
1:51.6	is hit? Is that due to tariffs or is it due to competition when it comes to AWS? I think we have
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.