Amazon (AMZN) released its long-expected quarterly financial results quoting best profits since 2021, but holiday quarter sales expected to lag.

To sum up, Amazon beat Wall Street expectations in its Q3 earnings report as the e-commerce and software giant looked fit to return to glory in 2021, even as its forecast for the key holiday season fell short. Amazon had revenue of $143.1 billion, beating consensus estimate of $141.5 billion, and earnings of $0.94 per share, beating expectations by $0.59. Total net income more than tripled YoY to $9.9 billion.

Segmentwise, the clear winner was Amazon’s AWS cloud computing unit, which brought $23.1 billion in revenue for the reporting period. That narrowly came short of consensus estimates of $23.2 billion and last quarter’s $22.1 billion of sales.

Importantly, Amazon expects revenue in its busiest Q4, due to peak holiday shopping, to be between $160 billion and $167 billion, with operating profit between $7 billion and $11 billion. The median revenue forecast is $163.5 billion, which is sadly below the $167.1 billion average analyst forecast (non-adjusted for annual CPI rise), while the median operating profit forecast remained at $9 billion, beating the $8.5 billion average analyst forecast. Amazon shares rose 5.41% to around $126 on today’s, October 27, early premarket.