*By Mike Teich*
Amazon shares jumped nearly 4 percent Friday after the e-commerce juggernaut delivered blockbuster earnings results on Thursday.
The tech giant impressed investors by delivering operating profit of $1.9 billion. Amazon's blockbuster numbers reflected its success in retail sales and growth in its cloud services business, said Michael Pachter, an analyst from Wedbush Securities.
Amazon also announced that it would be raising its Prime membership fee by $20, up to $119 a year. Pachter said the "odds are less than 1 percent that there is a decline in membership" as a result of the price hike.
Pachter compared Amazon Prime's cost to Netflix, noting that Prime was priced below Amazon's video-streaming rival and offers content that is "75 percent as good."
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.
