Amazon finished 2014 much stronger than some expected.
The company's Prime service grew its membership by 53% worldwide off a base of "tens of millions" in 2014.
The ecommerce retailer also announced solid earnings for the end of 2014 in its fourth-quarter earnings release on Thursday, logging $0.45 per share of profit, easily beating expectations of $0.17. Its total revenue of $29.3 billion just missed analyst estimates.
Shares moved sharply higher in after-hours trading, adding around 12.9% after the company's earnings call.
"When we raised the price of Prime membership last year, we were confident that customers would continue to find it the best bargain in the history of shopping," Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO said in the earnings press release. "The data is in and customers agree — on a base of tens of millions, worldwide paid membership grew 53% last year — 50% in the U.S. and even a bit faster outside the U.S."
Amazon also announced during its earnings call that the company will begin revealing the financials for its popular Amazon Web Services, which have become a go-to cloud-based technology resource.
Amazon will break out AWS results beginning with the first quarter of 2015. They've never disclosed that businesses financials.— Greg Bensinger (@GregBensinger) January 29, 2015
The profit is a good news for Amazon, which had recently seen its shares dip as the company had announced continued losses in previous quarters. For 2014, Amazon still lost $241 million ($0.52 per share) after logging a profit of $274 million in 2013.
Amazon shares have fallen 13.8% in the past year. Meanwhile, the benchmark S&P 500 index has risen 11%.
Part of the reason for the loss in 2014 is the company's aggressive investment in the media offerings that have become part of its Prime service. Last year, Amazon introduced numerous media elements to Prim including numerous original series -- among them was the critically acclaimed Transparent -- as well as striking a deal for a significant portion of HBO's library, while also adding a music service.
The video investments alone totaled $1.3 billion, according to Amazon's press release.
Still, Amazon's ability to generate revenue is rarely questioned. The company has, however, taken some heat for not controlling its expenses.
What we are witnessing is Jeff Bezos's once-every-few-quarters reminder that Amazon can make money if it wants to.— Aaron Levie (@levie) January 29, 2015
Amazon's press release had various other tidbits, including that its workforce is becoming more automated.
Amazon says it had 15,000 #robots filling orders in 10 fulfillment centers over the holidays. $AMZN— Cory Johnson (@CoryTV) January 29, 2015