Amazon Will Be First Trillion Dollar Stock, Says Forrester Analyst
Amazon shares jumped after hours Thursday, after the company trounced earnings expectations for the second quarter.
The e-commerce giant posted profit of $5.07 a shareーmore than double estimates and compared to just $0.40 a year ago.
Driving that growth was the company's cloud business, Amazon Web Services, which saw revenue surge almost 50 percent to more than $6.1 billion.
But while Amazon remains the clear leader in the space, Forrester Research retail analyst Sucharita Kodali pointed out that the company can't rest on its laurels.
"The question is, does cloud just get commoditized and does that ultimately bring prices down and compress margins," she said. "Companies like Microsoft and others are not going to simply stand by and let Amazon just completely dominate the market. You will see innovation in the space, you will likely see very, very competitive offers."
Still, Kodali said she expects Amazon to ultimately beat Apple in the race to $1 trillion. She said one of the things the company has going for it, is its ability to beat expectations in almost any business it decides to enter.
"They now have a physical fulfillment business that competes with FedEx and UPS," she said. "They have a media business that competes with everyone from Netflix to HBO and Disney. Then, of course, they have their marketing business that competes with Google, and the AWS business that's competitive with so many of the large technology giants that are out there."
Shares of Amazon were up almost 4 percent after the earnings report. The company closed the day with a market cap of $904 billion, just behind Apple which was worth $958 billion.
For more on this video, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-jumps-on-promise-of-more-growth).
The streaming giant Netflix posted its latest earnings from its fourth quarter after the close on Thursday. The company's stock plummeted shortly after the company warned that its rate of subscription additions are slowing down. Senior Reporter at MarketWatch Jon Swartz, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Revenue operations platform Clari recently raised $225 million in a Series F financing round led by Blackstone, bringing the company's valuation to more than $2.6 billion. Calri says more than 450 companies from around the world use its A.I.-powered platform to make their revenue operations more connected, efficient, and predictable. Clari CEO Andy Byrne joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Technology company Unity announced it has acquired Ziva Dynamics. Marc Whitten, SVP & GM, Create at Unity, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses how this move will help his company democratize real-time character creation.
AT&T announced it's offering two tiers of high-speed internet, 2 gigs, and 5 gigs, to its fiber customers in more than 70 metro regions. AT&T Consumer CEO Thaddeus Arroyo joined Cheddar to talk about the newly available speed upgrades for 5.2 million of its customers, and where the rollout goes from here. "Over the course of 2022, we'll rapidly continue to retrofit the rest of the base," he said. "And importantly now is, as we build-out, we've talked about building out to cover 30 million homes and businesses by the end of 2025, we're going to continue to ensure that every new location that we stand up has this multi gig capability."
Autonomous driving tech company Waymo is partnering with transportation and logistics business J.B. Hunt. The two firms are teaming up to bring autonomous shipping to the highways. Head of commercialization for trucking at Waymo, Charlie Jatt, joined Cheddar to discuss how the companies are combining their strengths. "We, of course at Waymo, are working on the technology side of affairs, and J. B Hunt brings critical operational and commercial expertise," Jatt said. "And together we're going to work to deploy the first fully autonomous Class 8 truck hauling goods for one of their customers in the coming years in Texas."
As companies look toward the metaverse concept to further move their companies online, Shep Ogden, CEO and co-founder of Offbeat Media, spoke with Cheddar about questions investors should be posing to businesses like how customized the metaverse experience will be. "One of the best things that people can do, or companies can do, to be competitive is really find those influencers within the community that are very deep in the space," Ogden added.
