Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) SSS Growth Moderates: Goldman

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Goldman Sachs Equity Research analysts Heath P. Terry, Debra Schwartz, Perry Gold and Tina Sun maintain a a buy rating for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Amazon: October SSS growth moderates

ChannelAdvisor reported Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) SSS growth of +23.8% for October, compared to +26.5% in September and +25.1% in 3Q. CA provides a readthrough for non-ebook third party sales (about 8% of Amazon’s N.A. sales). Over the last four quarters, Amazon’s North America reported revenue growth averaged 0.9X the CA reported revenue growth. Using CA’s SSS data for October implies +28% yoy growth of Amazon’s North America revenue vs. our estimate of +21% yoy. This growth moderated to +15.6% in the first week of November, a period CA only reports during the holiday season.

eBay: October SSS growth decelerates

eBay’s October SSS growth of +12.9% decelerated from +17.4% in September and +18.9% in 3Q. The moderation in October was largely from auction, down -0.4% yoy vs. +8.4% in September, as well as fixed-price (+12.8% vs. +19.4% in Sept) while Motors were up +16.0% vs. +14.4% in September. eBay noted this soft start to the quarter on its 3Q results call, though for the first week of November, growth accelerated to +13.6%.

Search data accelerates; but not truly predictive

For October, search was up +5.6% yoy vs. +1.8% in September and +0.9% in 3Q, and accelerated in the first week of November to +17.4%. CA’s reports generally have little correlation to Google’s reported figures. For comparison, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s standalone net revenue grew +23% yoy in 3Q13 vs. CA’s search category grew +0.9%.

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