Amazon reported $10.4 billion in profit for the first three months of the year, marking another quarter of growth that surpassed the start of 2023.
In its first-quarter financial results, released Tuesday afternoon, Amazon reported $143 billion in revenue, $10.4 billion in profit and 98 cents earnings per diluted share. In the same time period last year, Amazon reported $127 billion in revenue, $3.2 billion in profit and 31 cents earnings per diluted share.
Amazon’s first-quarter profit matches the result it saw at the end of last year, when the company reported $10.6 billion in net income.
“The theme is that growth is back,” Himanshu Jain, senior vice president and head of product at CommerceIQ, a software company that studies online platforms like Amazon and Walmart, said in an interview before Amazon’s earnings release.
On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy credited the same set of factors that have contributed to Amazon’s growth over the last few quarters, including faster delivery speeds for retail customers, Amazon’s growing advertising business and an increased interest in cloud computing and artificial intelligence services among business consumers.
“It’s very early days in all of our businesses and we remain excited by how much more we can make customers’ lives better and easier moving forward,” Jassy said.
For the start of 2024, net sales overall increased 13% to $143.3 billion. Sales for Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division, increased 17% to $25 billion.
Sales for Amazon’s advertising service increased 24% year over year to $11.8 billion, but dropped quarter over quarter. Amazon reported $14.6 billion from ad sales in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Operating income increased to $15.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024, compared to $4.8 billion in the same time period last year.
Amazon’s first-quarter net income includes a loss of $2 billion from its investment in electric vehicle startup Rivian.
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