• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 25, 2019

Amazon missed its third-quarter Wall Street earnings target, due to a softening of most of its markets, except for advertising, where it continues to take market share and solidify its position as a rising No. 3 vs. Google and Facebook.

“The biggest bright spot in our view was advertising,” Pivotal Research Group analyst Michael Levine wrote in a note sent to investors Thursday.

Amazon’s advertising revenues grew 44% year-over-year in the third quarter vs. a 27% expansion in the second quarter.

Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler wrote that he expects Amazon’s ad growth to “remain healthy though growth is slowing somewhat due to increased saturation” on Amazon.com. In his “bull case” scenario, he says Amazon could expand its ad market beyond its core site into its premium Amazon Prime Video site, as well as “off-Amazon” relationships with other third parties.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon also singled out advertising as Amazon’s third quarter sweet spot, adding, “We see advertising growing 47% again in [the fourth quarter], but are optimistic there could be upside against the easy comps from a year ago.”