Amazon Shares Surge On Profit Spike

Amazon shares have risen sharply after the company reported a massive profit boost driven by strong sales across its range of offerings, from retail to cloud services.

The company saw sales surge 11 percent year-on-year in the second quarter to $134.4 billion (£105bn), up from $121.2bn in the same quarter a year ago and above Refinitiv analysts’ predictions of $131.4bn.

Its profit was $6.7bn for the quarter, up from a $2bn loss in the second quarter of 2022 and far above analysts’ predictions of $3.592bn.

Amazon was one of many tech companies that have cut thousands of workers in recent months due to a slowdown in 2022 that followed a spike in unsustainable growth during the pandemic.

Cloud, retail surge

The company saw a strong recovery in retail, saying it had been able to cut delivery time and costs.

The Amazon Web Services cloud business saw a 16 percent rise in sales in the first quarter, following a period of slow growth due to customers’ economic worries.

That continued with slightly slower 12 percent growth in the second quarter, which chief executive Andy Jassy said was in part due to supplying computing power to “a slew of generative AI releases”.

He noted that AWS growth had “stabilised”, adding that there was “strong demand” for Amazon’s advertising sevices.

Apple worries

The company’s ad business rocketed 22 percent year-on-year to $10.7bn.

The pattern was reversed for Apple, which was the only major tech company that didn’t undergo large post-pandemic job cuts.

Apple saw its stock price fall to a one-month low on Friday after warning that it was heading for a fourth consecutive quarter of declining iPhone sales, especially in developed markets.