Glonghui, Feb. 6 | Bank of America released a research report showing that Amazon's business improved in the fourth quarter of last year, with revenue and profit reaching 170 billion and 13.2 billion US dollars, both higher than market expectations of 166.2 billion and 10.5 billion US dollars. Among them, the retail profit margin in the North American market reached 6.1%, far higher than the 4.1% expected by the market. I believe it is mainly due to the decline in logistics and contract fulfillment service costs, and anticipation of future or greater room for improvement. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) business grew 13.2% during the period, in line with market expectations. Bank of America expects that the accelerated development of the AWS business and strong Prime Video advertising growth will drive the Group's profit margin increase in the next few quarters. Looking ahead, the bank pointed out that Amazon's revenue guidance for the first quarter of this year was between US$138 billion and US$143.5 billion, which is 1% lower than the market's estimate of about US$142 billion, indicating that the growth rate may have slowed to 8% to 13% from 14% in the fourth quarter of last year. Bank of America continues to expect AWS revenue growth to accelerate to 17% for the full year of 2024, raise the net profit margin forecast for the full year of this year from 4.9% to 6.6%, raise the net profit margin forecast for 2025 to 8.2%, raise the revenue and profit forecast for the full year of next year to 717 billion and 72 billion US dollars, raise the earnings forecast per share from 4.58 US dollars to 5.3 US dollars, and raise the target price from 185 US dollars to 204 US dollars, reaffirming the “buy” rating.