Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has officially confirmed that it is delaying its online retail event known as Prime Day to sometime later this year, citing the fallout from COVID-19. However, Amazon said that in India its Prime event would occur from August 6-7.
A spokesperson for Amazon told The Verge on July 21, “This year we’ll be holding Prime Day later than usual while ensuring the safety of our employees and supporting our customers and selling partners.” The spokesperson added, “Members all around the world will experience Prime Day later this year.”
In June, Amazon was forced to suspend its popular Amazon Shipping for non-Amazon packages to give priority to its Prime customers. Amazon has gradually returned to normal operations after inventories and staff shortages, however, the company did not specify a date for the delay but said it will be “sharing more details soon.”
Last year, Amazon reported 175 million items sold on Amazon Prime with more than $100 million paying Prime members globally. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said on July 17, 2019, that “members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, received tens of millions of dollars in savings by shopping from Whole Foods Market and bought more than $2 billion of products from independent small and medium-sized businesses.”
Recently, CNBC reported on July 2 that a company email was sent to third-party sellers to anticipate October 5 as a potential “placeholder date” for Prime Day but saying that “a definitive date will be announced as we get closer to the event.”
If the estimated Prime date of October 5 is correct it would come nearly two months before the largest retail shopping day of the year known as “Black Friday,” which will be held on November 27.
MKM Partners analyst Rohit Kulkarni stated on July 20, “As the pandemic has accelerated the shift towards online shopping and towards cloud computing, we believe Amazon is the single best beneficiary from these secular trends over the next several years.” He reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and raised his price target from $2,525 to $3,350 which implies 5% upside potential.
Amazon is currently trading up 73% year-to-date with a Strong Buy analyst consensus that breaks down into 36 Buy ratings versus 2 Hold ratings and 1 Sell rating. The $3,057 average price target suggests 4% downside potential for the shares in the coming 12 months. (See Amazon’s stock analysis on TipRanks).
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