Strong results for Amazon in first quarter of 2024
Amazon has reported strong results for the first three months of the year, driven by growth in its cloud-computing unit and a new surge of advertising income from its Prime Video streaming service.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant, which has a major fulfilment centre near Sutton Coldfield, said it brought in £114 billion in revenue - a 13 per cent jump compared with the same period last year. Net income came to £8.3 billion.
"It was a good start to the year across the business, and you can see that in both our customer experience improvements and financial results," said Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy.
The biggest online retailer in the US is coming off better-than-expected results for the holiday shopping period, when it saw strong consumer spending aided by discounts and faster shipping speeds.
Amazon held another discount event in late March, right before the end of the first quarter.
Aside from its core retail business, Amazon said first-quarter sales in its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, amounted to £20bn, up 17 per cent on the eyar.
Sales in the company's online advertising business also spiked 24 per cent, partly driven by Prime Video.
After years of giving Prime subscribers ad-free access to their favourite movies and TV shows, Amazon implemented a new policy in late January that lets viewers avoid ads only if they pay an additional amount a month.
