Amazon revenue beat driven by online shopping demand, cloud unit
Global News
Amazon.com Inc's first-quarter revenue beat estimates on Thursday, helped by resilient demand for online shopping and cloud services businesses.
Amazon.com Inc‘s first-quarter revenue beat estimates on Thursday, helped by resilient demand for online shopping and cloud services businesses, sending its shares up about nine per cent in extended trading.
The world’s biggest online retailer reported better-than-expected net sales of $127.36 billion in the first three months of the year and forecast sales between $127 billion and $133 billion in the second quarter.
Analysts had expected sales of $129.83 billion in the quarter-ending June 30.
The growth of Amazon Web Services, long a major source of profit, slowed to 15.8 per cent in the first quarter, while recession-wary businesses have slowed their spending.
Net profit stood at $3.17 billion in the quarter ended March 31, compared with a loss of $3.84 billion, a year earlier.
Addressing ongoing worries about the economy, CEO Andy Jassy has aimed to clamp down on spending across Amazon’s vast array of businesses.
Last month, he said Amazon would cut more jobs, now from its long-profitable cloud and advertising divisions, expanding the company’s layoffs since November to 27,000 employees, or nine per cent of its roughly 300,000-strong corporate staff.
Amazon likewise has ended entire services, including on Wednesday when it said it would pull its lineup of Halo health trackers and refund recent purchases.
The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude shot up 8.5 per cent Thursday to settle at US$81.01 per barrel, the highest level since the summer of 2024.
Under the terms of the voluntary pledge, companies intend to build or buy new sources of power generation for their data centers and cover the expense of infrastructure upgrades.
Oil prices leaped, and stock markets slumped worldwide following military strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran, including Wall Street and the TSX.
'The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,' CEO Jack Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders of the financial tech firm.