E-commerce leader Amazon.com said this year's Prime Day sales event was its biggest ever with customers purchasing a record number of items. And Amazon stock analysts say the 48-hour promotion should give the company's third-quarter results a boost.
The first day of the promotion on July 11 was the single largest sales day in company history, Amazon said in a news release. Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide during the event, up from over 300 million items in last year's promotion.
Amazon did not give revenue figures for the event and Wall Street estimates varied. Analyst estimates for Amazon revenue growth for the event ranged from 15% to 21% compared with last year's Prime Day.
Younger consumers showed up in droves to the event as Amazon leaned into social media, especially TikTok, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note to clients late Thursday.
Amazon Stock Gets Price-Target Hike
Sebastian raised his price target on Amazon stock to 150 from 130 and kept his outperform rating.
On the stock market today, Amazon stock climbed 0.3% to close at 134.68.
On Thursday, Amazon stock jumped 2.7% to close at 134.30, its highest level since last September.
This year's Prime Day promotion saw a big increase in younger shoppers. Some 26% of Prime Day shoppers were between 25 and 34 years old vs. 21% last year, Sebastian said, citing data from Civicscience. Meanwhile, the share of older consumers, those over 55, dropped to 24% from 28%, he said.
Amazon Increases Presence On TikTok
"Social media played a role," Sebastian said. "Amazon had a larger presence on TikTok this year, as younger shoppers used the platform for product discovery. Prime Day shoppers were also more likely to be active Snapchat, Pinterest and Instagram users than the broader U.S. population."
Bestselling product categories during Prime Day 2023 included home, fashion and beauty. That implies that consumers were more practical with their purchases this year, Sebastian said.
Better-Than-Expected Sales Event
Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that Prime Day generated $11.9 billion in gross merchandise value, resulting in $6.2 billion in revenue for Amazon. Prime Day revenue was up 21% year over year and will provide a 4.4% contribution to the company's third-quarter revenue, he said in a note to clients.
"We view these results as modestly better than we would have assumed," Mahaney said. He reiterated his outperform rating on Amazon stock with a price target of 150.
Cowen analyst John Blackledge estimated that Prime Day drove $13 billion in gross merchandise value, resulting in Amazon revenue of $7.7 billion. Amazon's revenue from the sales event rose 15% year over year, he said in a note to clients.
Blackledge rates Amazon stock as outperform with a price target of 150.
BofA Securities analyst Justin Post said Amazon Prime Day sales benefited from higher discounts this year. Post estimates that Amazon generated $12.1 billion in gross merchandise value with $8.7 billion in revenue for Amazon.
"We think the strong unit growth also suggests solid new Prime subscription sign-ups, high customer satisfaction and likely will aid Prime retention rates," Post said in a report Friday.
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