Amazon Revenues Grew 9 Percent in Q1

Amazon announced today that it earned a net income of $3.2 billion on revenues of $127.4 billion in the quarter ending March 31. Revenues are up 9 percent year-over-year (YOY).

“There’s a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. “Our stores business is continuing to improve the cost to serve in our fulfillment network while increasing the speed with which we get products into the hands of customers (we expect to have our fastest Prime delivery speeds ever in 2023). Our advertising business continues to deliver robust growth, largely due to our ongoing machine learning investments that help customers see relevant information when they engage with us, which in turn delivers unusually strong results for brands. And, while our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment, we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI. We believe there’s much growth ahead.”

AWS earned $21.4 billion in revenues in the quarter, a gain of almost 16 percent YOY. $76.9 billion in revenues came from the company’s North American operations, a gain of 11 percent. And $29.1 billion came from its international operations, a gain of about 2 percent.

And that’s about it for the hard numbers: Amazon’s earnings announcements are always frustratingly vague on the details and instead focus on various accomplishments and milestones from the previous quarter. Skipping past that, the firm noted that the unpredictability of its market makes it difficult to predict how things will go in the future. That said, it expects revenues of $127.0 billion to $133.0 billion in the current quarter, which would represent 5 to 10 percent growth YOY. But that assumes there are no additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements during the quarter.

The announcement likewise doesn’t address the massive layoffs that have racked Amazon’s employee base in recent months, including a new round that started just yesterday. But Amazon does mention that it “strives to be Earth’s Best Employer.”