Amazon Revenues Hit $96.15 Billion(!)

Amazon just announced quarterly revenues that are bigger than those of Microsoft and Google combined: $96.15 billion, an incredible gain of 37 percent year-over-year. But its net income was a paltry $6.3 billion, lower than the profits posted by its competitors.

“We’re seeing more customers than ever shopping early for their holiday gifts, which is just one of the signs that this is going to be an unprecedented holiday season,” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said. “Big thank you to our employees and selling partners around the world who’ve been busy getting ready to deliver for customers this holiday.”

To say that Amazon has benefitted mightily from the COVID-19 pandemic is obviously an understatement. But instead of acknowledging this fact, the company instead used its quarterly financial announcement to talk about all the hiring its done during this awful time: Amazon says it has created over 400,000 jobs this year and that its employees are offered “industry-leading pay and great healthcare.”

The word “hero” is, perhaps, tossed around too lightly in some cases. Ahem.

While there is precious little in the press release that isn’t about Amazon patting itself on its collective back, the retailing giant says that it expects to deliver between $112.0 billion and $121.0 billion in revenues in the current holiday quarter, with YOY growth as high as 38 percent. Incredible.

Share post

Conversation 9 comments

  • Pierre Masse

    29 October, 2020 - 9:12 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Amazon says it has created over 400,000 jobs this year and that its employees are offered “industry-leading pay and great healthcare.”"</span></p><p>Lies has always existed but it seems it doesn't matter anymore. I wonder why? (sarcasm).</p>

  • brettscoast

    Premium Member
    30 October, 2020 - 12:21 am

    <p>wow that is simply amazing. Perhaps less slapping on the back and more to addressing real concerns of employees and customers.</p>

  • codymesh

    30 October, 2020 - 12:26 am

    <p>tax amazon.</p>

    • jedwards87

      30 October, 2020 - 12:32 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#589673">In reply to codymesh:</a></em></blockquote><p>They did only profit 6.3 billion. I say tax Google, MS and Apple. They sold half yet made so much more in profit.</p>

      • ym73

        30 October, 2020 - 2:16 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#589806">In reply to jedwards87:</a></em></blockquote><p>You don't think Google, MS and Apple pay taxes? Check their financial statements. Google had a tax provision of$5.2 billion , Apple's was $10.5 billion, and MS was $8.7 billion. Google's and MS taxes do appear low but if you read the footnotes to the financials you will see that the provision was too high in prior years because they used the higher 35% corporate rate. When they recalculated the provision for the lower rate, that reduced the expense. This was offset by the taxes they had to pay on their previously untaxed foreign earnings at 15.5% due to the new tax law. You might think 15.5% is low but in the past, they were paying nothing on foreign earnings as long as they kept the money outside the US. </p>

  • Martin Sjöholm

    30 October, 2020 - 7:00 am

    <p>I'm all for a free market in most areas (not wanting to make this too political so skipping the details), but the earnings of these companies are just gross (in the I-do-not-like-it sense) and makes me as a consumer think that I shouldn't have to pay as much as I do and still give the owners a fair bit of return on investment. I will do my bit and hang on to my iPhone X for at least one more year. To Apple's credit they do make old devices last. Thanks for listening to this non-coherent rambling! :)</p>

    • ym73

      30 October, 2020 - 1:53 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#589685">In reply to RoundaboutSkid:</a></em></blockquote><p>Someone doesn't know the difference between revenue and profit. Amazon has a lot of revenue, but their margins are small. So, their net income isn't that large, except for their AWS services. They do get taxed on that net income. If they didn't pay much last year it is likely because they had prior losses that were being carried forward. People seem to forget that even though Amazon had large sales, they were losing money for most of their existence until they started AWS. Businesses are allowed to offset income with prior losses so that they can break even. I believe they used up their net operating losses and will get taxed at the current 21% fed tax rate plus the state and foreign taxes. If they distribute their earning to shareholders in the form of dividends, the shareholders will pay and additional 15% or 23.8%, depending on their tax bracket. If they don't issue dividends and instead reinvest in their business or buy other companies, that spending will generate more taxes as well. People who think corporations don't pay taxes are clueless about finance and accounting. </p>

  • LocalPCGuy

    30 October, 2020 - 2:00 pm

    <p>6.3 billion US dollars is not really a paltry sum, even though it's "only 6.55%" of revenue. </p>

  • Matthias Götzke

    04 November, 2020 - 2:03 am

    <p>Of course revenue is higher and profits lower for a company selling and shipping physical products around the world.</p>

Newsletter

Stay up to date with the latest tech news from Thurrott.com!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2023 BWW Media Group