(Bloomberg) — In all the excitement about artificial intelligence, Amazon.com Inc.’s most important business. (AMZN) has been somewhat forgotten by investors. This week’s Prime Minister’s Day event could change that.
The two-day shopping spree, starting Tuesday, is expected to show strong growth and reinforce Amazon’s dominant position in e-commerce — and retail in general. It could also highlight how improvements made during Covid continue to pay off, a positive signal ahead of the company’s second quarter results.
“These investments are improving efficiency, and there is room to surprise with faster expansion and improved margins,” said Mike Brenner, research analyst at FBB Capital Partners. “Prime Day used to be about revenue, but now investors are looking for growth and margins, and if it can improve its retail margins, that will definitely drive the stock higher.”
Analysts at Jefferies wrote last week that improved efficiency in Amazon’s retail business would quadruple the e-commerce giant’s Ebit margins — from 2.4% in 2022 to 9.9% this year.
While Prime Day sales have faded as a direct booster for the stock, a strong showing would provide further justification for 29% growth in 2024, a move that has lifted Amazon above a $2 trillion market valuation. The Nasdaq 100 is up 21% so far this year.
Shares rose 2% on Tuesday.
Much of this progress reflects the benefit the company could see from AI and its Amazon Web Services cloud computing division. Last quarter, Amazon said that generative artificial intelligence represented a “multi-billion dollar revenue business.”
However, while AWS is Amazon’s most profitable unit, retail remains the main contributor to sales.
Online stores accounted for 40.3% of Amazon’s revenue in 2023, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Another 24.4% came from commissions and other services sold to third-party sellers who list their goods on Amazon sites.
AWS generated less than 16% of total sales last year, with the annual growth rate at 13%. That’s faster than the 5.4% seen in the online store, but behind the 18% increase for third-party seller services.
Amazon’s most recent revenue forecast was weak, a sign of caution for the e-commerce business, especially as retail sales data has been thin. There’s some optimism that Prime Day will ease those concerns, helped by added momentum from Amazon’s new AI shopping assistant.
“Prime Day should promote an early start to school/college shopping during a quieter time in the retail calendar,” and “the financial benefits extend well beyond the 2-day event period,” the JPMorgan analyst wrote. Doug Anmuth. He noted downwinds for Amazon’s advertising business and membership trends.
JPMorgan projects total gross merchandise value of $12.4 billion during the event, an increase of 12%, along with $7.9 billion in total net retail sales. Of that, $5.8 billion will be revenue that Amazon wouldn’t have generated without Prime Day, he estimates.
That growth rate, along with an expanding market share within e-commerce, is why JPMorgan last month tipped Amazon to overtake Walmart Inc. as the largest retailer in the US this year.
“Retail sometimes gets a little lost in the middle of AWS, but it remains a great business and there’s a strong case for e-commerce,” said Stephen Lee, principal founder at Logan Capital Management. “Prime Day is less of a catalyst than it used to be, but it’s an opportunity to highlight how Amazon offers reasonable value at the forefront of changing the same-day delivery game.”
Amazon’s dominant positions in both retail and cloud-computing support the argument that its stock is a relative bargain. The stock trades at 33 times estimated earnings, and while that’s above the Nasdaq 100’s 27 multiple, it’s well below Amazon’s 10-year average of about 55. The valuation isn’t far from multiyear lows.
More than 95% of analysts tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying Amazon, and the average price target indicates a 15% upside from last close, the highest return potential among megacaps.
The company is expected to generate revenue growth of 11% this year and maintain a double-digit pace for the next two years. Net profits are expected to grow by 63% this year.
“That kind of growth could support the multiple, which I think will continue to compress as Amazon maintains strong revenue growth,” FBB’s Brenner said. “It would be a bit of a flip to call the retail business gravy, but Amazon is clearly an amazing company even without AWS.”
Technical chart of the day
In a positive sign of improving market breadth, more than 70% of Nasdaq 100 Index components are trading above their 50-day moving averages. This is close to the highest such ratio since February, and a dramatic turnaround from April, when less than 20% were above this closely watched level.
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