Amazon has reported its first quarter results for 2023. Against the backdrop of tougher economic conditions, the company still managed to increase net sales by 9% to $127.4 billion. In the same quarter a year earlier, net sales only reached $116.4 billion. Also year-over-year, the firm improved its operating income, net income, operating cash flow, and free cash flow.
The impressive results delivered by Amazon mirror those we’ve seen from Meta, Microsoft, and Google. All of these firms have managed to keep revenues in positive territory, albeit after cost-cutting which meant layoffs.
“There’s a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. “Our Stores business is continuing to improve the cost to serve in our fulfillment network while increasing the speed with which we get products into the hands of customers (we expect to have our fastest Prime delivery speeds ever in 2023). Our Advertising business continues to deliver robust growth, largely due to our ongoing machine learning investments that help customers see relevant information when they engage with us, which in turn delivers unusually strong results for brands. And, while our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment, we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships both by helping customers save money and enabling them to more easily leverage technologies like Large Language Models and Generative AI with our uniquely cost-effective machine learning chips (“Trainium” and “Inferentia”), managed Large Language Models (“Bedrock”), and AI code companion CodeWhisperer. We like the fundamentals we’re seeing in AWS, and believe there’s much growth ahead.”
As part of this earnings report, Amazon gave guidance on where it expects things to go during the second quarter. It expects net sales to be between $127 billion and $133 billion and operating income to be between $2 billion and $5.5 billion compared to $4.8 billion this quarter and $3.3 billion year-over-year.
On the back of the good report, Amazon's share price ended the trading day at $109.82, up 4.61% from the market open.
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