After a week of downbeat tech results, Amazon and LinkedIn last night reported revenues which beat analysts’ expectations.

Online retail giant Amazon.com’s quarterly revenue surged 28.2 per cent as its Prime loyalty programme helped attract more customers and revenue jumped in its cloud services business. The results beat analysts’ expectations by a wide margin.

Amazon reported net income of $513 million for the quarter ended March 31st. The company had a loss of $57 million a year earlier. Revenue surged 28.2 per cent to $29.13 billion.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of $27.98 billion. Shares jumped nearly 13 per cent to $679 in post-market trading.

Amazon has seen strong growth in subscribers to its Prime scheme, which offers one-hour delivery, original TV programming and access to its digital entertainment products such as Prime Music and Prime Video for an annual fee of $99. The company recently launched a monthly subscription to the programme for $10.99.

Another area of growth is web services, where the firm’s cloud services division recorded net sales of $2.6 billion. The unit, Amazon’s fastest growing business, is seen as the next driver of growth for the company.

While sales of Amazon’s devices have been overshadowed by rivals like Apple, the firm said consumers bought twice as many of its Fire Tablets in the first quarter than a year ago.

Separately, LinkedIn, the operator of the world’s biggest online network for professionals, reported a 35 per cent rise in quarterly revenue as demand grew for its hiring services.

However, the net loss attributable to LinkedIn widened to $45.8 million from $42.5 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to $860.7 million from $637.7 million. LinkedIn shares rose nearly 10 per cent in after-hours trading. – (Reuters)