SEATTLE, WA - The grocery business seems to be treating Amazon just fine. The company’s newly released Q3 financial report was met with much enthusiasm, with shareholders catapulting stock prices up nearly 8 percent. In the report, Amazon topped Wall Street expectations for revenue by just around $1 billion, as well as exceeding earnings per share expectations by a whopping 49 cents.

These wins came as a sweet surprise to many investors who expected Amazon to follow its usual suit of investing heavily back into its business during the third quarter, reports CNBC. Instead, earnings were bolstered by both a strong quarter for North American sales, as well as a push for its Amazon Web Services. This is was also the first quarter that represented sales from Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods, raking in $1.3 billion in sales.

Furthermore, the retailer has eyed new horizons for its Q4, considered by many to be its most profitable. Amazon has set expectations for net sales in Q4 to hit between $56 billion and $60.5 billion, or, in other words, grow between 28% and 38% over Q4 2016. Amazon said in a press release that this estimate includes approximately 1,000 basis points of impact to our year-over-year growth rate from its acquisition of Whole Foods Market.

All in all, Amazon’s report was filled with highlights, but according to Reuters, here are a few of the most notable:

• Revenue hit $43.7 billion versus $42.14 billion expected
• EPS hit 52 cents versus 3 cents per share expected
• AWS revenue was $4.58 billion versus $4.51 billion expected
• Revenue increased 34 percent from last year, in part due to the $1.3 billion in sales from Whole Foods
• North American sales were $25.4 billion, up 35 percent from last year
• International sales grew 29% to $13.7 billion

As of 7:12 PM EDT yesterday, Amazon’s shares had risen 7.82% in after-hours trading, putting each share at a price of $972.43. By the end of the day, the company’s market cap was valued at $467.14 billion, according to Google Finance. According to CNBC, Amazon shares have grown 30 percent year-to-date.

This is just the beginning of what we will be sure to see from the new grocery-focused Amazon company, and AndNowUKnow will be keeping an eager eye on the retailer’s Q2.

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