Amazon posts record first-quarter profits triple what it made one year ago

Amazon.com continues to profit off Americans' pandemic shopping habits, posting a record first-quarter profit of $8.11 billion — more than tripling its first-quarter income back in 2020.

The e-commerce giant reported $108.5 billion in sales for the quarter ending March 31, up 44% from the year-earlier period. AWS, the cloud services division that generated half of Amazon's profit, maintained its steady 32% year-over-year growth clip, while North America sales, Amazon's largest segment, grew 40% from the year-ago period. Amazon shares have climbed 6.5% since the beginning of the year, while the S&P 500-stock index rose has 12%. But Amazon's stock price has soared 78% since last March, when the coronavirus pandemic first made online shopping a necessity for many U.S. consumers.