Amazon Q1 Earnings Top Wall Street Expectations, Tech Giant Swings to $3.2 Billion Profit Amid Layoffs

Amazon, in the midst of paring back its workforce, topped Wall Street forecasts with better-than-expected revenue growth for the first quarter of 2023.

The company reported Q1 revenue of $127.4 billion, up 9% year over year, improving over a 7% rise in the year-earlier quarter but still off its historical pace of top-line growth. Net income was $3.2 billion, or 31 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $3.8 billion in Q1 2022 (which included a $7.8 billion loss on its stake in electric-vehicle maker Rivian).

The results come as the ecommerce colossus is in the middle of laying off 9,000 workers, on top of the 18,000 job cuts announced in January. On Thursday, the company laid off about 100 employees at Amazon Studios and Prime Video.

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Amazon’s Q1 results easily coasted past financial analyst projections. On average, Wall Street expected revenue of $124.55 billion and earnings per share of 21 cents, according to Refinitiv data. Shares of Amazon climbed more than 11% in after-hours trading on the beat.

“There’s a lot to like about how our teams are delivering for customers, particularly amidst an uncertain economy,” CEO Andy Jassy said in announcing the results. “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.”

Amazon’s ad segment had sales of $9.5 billion, an increase of 21% year over year, beating analyst expectations of 15% growth.

The company’s AWS cloud segment saw sales rise 16% year-over-year to $21.4 billion, while operating income declined 21%, to $5.1 billion.

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