Amazon results lifted by AWS and subscription-based services

AWS generated net sales of 7.7 billion dollars, up 41 percent on the same period last year

Cloud services and subscription-based products such as Prime helped Amazon achieve strong quarterly results once again, with net sales up 17 percent to 59.7 billion dollars (£42.6 billion).

AWS delivered the biggest area of growth in the three months to the end of March, with net sales at 7.7 billion dollars (£6 billion), up 41 percent year over year.

Operating income for AWS came in at 2.2 billion dollars (£1.7 billion).

Amazon said net income increased to 3.6 billion dollars (£2.8 billion) in the first quarter of 2019, more than double the same period last year when it totalled 1.6 billion dollars (£1.2 billion).

Subscription services, which include everything from Prime to audiobooks, also delivered the biggest percentage hike, standing at 4.3 billion dollars (£3.3 billion) in net sales, up 40 percent from last year’s 3.1 billion dollars (£2.4 billion).

Online store net sales only increased 10 percent compared with the previous year but still provided the lion’s share at 29.4 billion dollars (£22.8 billion).

Its smaller physical store business proved less fruitful, only increasing 1 percent to a total of 4.3 billion dollars (£3.3 billion).

Elsewhere, advertising also contributed a smaller amount at 2.7 billion dollars (£2.1 billion) but still managed a 34 percent rise on this time last year.

Chief executive Jeff Bezos reacted by talking about Amazon’s commitment to inventing new products and services.

“Our passion for invention led us to create Amazon Future Engineer so we could help young people like Leo from underrepresented groups and underserved communities across the country,” Mr Bezos said.

“In addition to 100 college scholarships a year, we’re funding computer science classes in 1,000 high schools and counting, and inspiring younger kids to explore coding through coding camps and after-school programmes.

“We love this programme, and we can’t wait to see what Leo and his fellow future engineers invent.”

Yesterday Microsoft held its earnings call for Q3 2019, reporting an unexpected (and giant) jump in income which it credited to the increased uptake of commercial cloud and Office 365 subscriptions.