Amazon beats expectations in first quarter earnings as shares jump 11%

theguardian.com:

Amazon shares jumped more than 11%, as income from its cloud computing and advertising units beat estimates for the first quarter of the year.

The e-commerce behemoth, which is in the midst of aggressively cutting costs including laying-off 27,000 workers, said revenue for the quarter was $127.4bn, a 9% growth compared to the $116.4bn it reported during the same period last year.

Profits at the Seattle-based company were reported at $3.17bn, or 31 cents per share, but higher than the $2.24bn industry analysts had expected.

Despite coming in ahead of expectations, Amazon said that its AWS cloud unit, which pioneered the market over 15 years ago and maintains a commanding lead over other tech firms, grew by 16% during the first quarter, much slower than 37% the company reported a year earlier.

Overall, Amazon’s results are a strong improvement over a year earlier, and followed upbeat earnings by Facebook parent’s company Meta, as well as Microsoft. Prior to Thursday’s results, Amazon shares are up 31% for the year after nearly half their value in 2022.

Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, said in a statement that “there’s a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy”.

Amazon’s advertising business, which saw revenues jump 23% year-over-year to $9.51bn, had benefited from the company’s investments in machine learning, Jassy said. While business customers are spending “more cautiously” on cloud services, he added, Amazon’s storage and machine learning services, would provide “much growth ahead”.

Earlier this month, the company warned that shoppers have become more conscious about their spending and are trying to save costs when they can. On top of that, many shoppers have returned to