Amazon Revenues Up 43% No Mention Of OZ Performance

Amazon.com has reported massive first quarter growth but there is no mention of how their Australian operation is performing.

Global profit has more than doubled and sales have continued to accelerate. Net Income rose to $1.6 billion, up from $724 million, a year ago.

Revenue jumped 43% from last year, to $51 billion from $35.7 billion. The company’s shares surged 6.3 per cent to $US1,614 in extended trading in New York — on top of a 4 per cent gain during the regular session on Thursday– after the e-commerce giant’s results beat Wall Street estimates.

In Australia there are concerns that the brand was damaged by a poor launch with several key consumer electronic suppliers and most appliance manufacturers deciding to stay with their current high street retail sales model.

AWS, the company’s cloud-computing arm, was the biggest driver of that profit. Amazon said AWS had operating income of $1.4 billion, up from $890 million, as revenue topped $5 billion for the second consecutive quarter, at $5.44 billion.

AWS revenue grew 48.6% from the year before, while operating income increased 57.3%.

“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” CEO Jeff Bezos said overnight “That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row.”

Bezos revealed for the first time recently that Amazon Prime, a service that provides free two-day shipping on many orders along with access to Amazon’s streaming-video service and other perks, had surpassed 100 million subscribers. It’s not known how many subscribers Prime has in Australia.
The company’s subscription services segment, which includes Prime as well as other subscriptions, such as an e-books offering and Amazon Music, grew 60% year-over-year to $3.1 billion in sales.

Online sales are growing faster than overall retail, and Amazon currently commands roughly 43 cents of every dollar spent online, according to estimates by research firm eMarketer. The company’s loyal base of Prime members, who analysts estimate spend significantly more than the average shopper on the site, now tops over 100 million globally.

About Post Author

David Richards

David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media company and prior to that the third largest PR company that became the foundation company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.