(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (O:AMZN) on Thursday beat analysts' estimates for fourth-quarter revenue, as its efforts to speed up delivery helped attract more shoppers during the holiday season, sending its shares up 10%.
Retailers usually generate a majority of their annual sales and profit during the holiday period.
The company forecast net sales in the range of billion and billion for the first quarter. Analysts were expecting revenue of .65 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Net sales in North America, its biggest market, jumped 21.6% to .67 billion during the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected revenue of .23 billion from the segment.
Revenue from its lucrative cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS), which sells data storage and computing power in the cloud, surged 34% to .95 billion. Analysts had expected .84 billion.
Amazon's total operating expenses surged 21.8% during the quarter to .56 billion.
Net sales rose 21% to .44 billion in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 , beating estimates of .02 billion.
