Amazon delivered another strong set of results, marking the fifth consecutive quarter in which profits above expectations.
Sales increased significantly across the board, particularly in the company’s computing segment. The advertising division’s revenue increased 24% to $11.82 billion, driven by sales of ad units in stores and on video.
Sales in the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year increased 13% to $143.3 billion, up from $127.4 billion in the same period last year. In North America, sales increased to $86.3 billion. Sales at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing segment, increased 17% to $25 billion.
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Analysts are particularly thrilled by Amazon’s bottom-line performance, with an operating income of $15.3 billion. That is the company’s best ever, more than tripling the $4.8 billion it reported in 2023. The gains are due to “continued cost efficiencies within its fulfillment network as well as the ongoing mix shift towards higher-margin AWS and advertising revenue,” writes Scott Devitt, an analyst who covers Amazon for Wedbush. He also points to the “emerging success in monetizing generative AI, which is already on a multibillion dollar revenue run rate and should contribute more meaningfully to AWS growth as the year progresses.”
Amazon’s president and CEO, Andy Jassy, highlighted advances in customer experience in the announcements. “Our stores business continues to expand selection, provide everyday low prices, and accelerate delivery speed,” he claims, breaking yet another record for Prime users.
According to Devitt, investor reactions to the statistics were “somewhat muted,” as Amazon’s second-quarter revenue prediction was slightly lower than expected. At the same time, it had slightly larger capital spending plans for data centers.
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Wedbush is bullish on Amazon’s chances. “We think the associated monetization opportunity is already contributing to AWS growth and should continue to do so, with management expecting AI to generate tens of billions of revenue in the next several years.”
Dan Romanoff, an analyst who covers the company for Morningstar, is similarly impressed. “Overall demand continues to trend favorably across business units,” he adds in his report. And while “the company’s second-quarter outlook was shy of our aggressive estimates,” he is optimistic about profitability improvements: “Many positive trends from the last several quarters continued, with notable improvement in AWS demand and additional cost savings arising from fulfillment and cost to serve.”
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