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Every feature of the Covid-19 pandemic has served for boosting the tech giant’s revenues, from video streaming to delivery of grocery items.
It expects the boom to continue over the next few months. The pandemic could herald “a golden age” for Amazon, as per the analyst.
Amazon has the latest blow-out results from Big Tech this week. Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google’s parent firm Alphabet have all stated big sales increases a year after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Amazon group still continuing to spread for reaching out to automated grocery stores, online healthcare services, even experimenting with a bricks-and-mortar hair and beauty salon in London.
But its main offerings involves: online shopping with home delivery, media streaming and cloud-based web-services all thrived during a year of turmoil for other businesses.
Revenue is designed from $75bn (£54bn) this time last year to $108.5bn for the three months to the end of March. Profit was $8.1bn, up from $2.5bn a year ago.
Chief executive Jeff Bezos emphasized the streaming service Prime Video and AWS, the web-services division, and said he was “proud to have them in the family”.
He said, “As Prime Video turns 10, over 175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year, and streaming hours are up more than 70% year over year.”
He said AWS had been grown in its first 15 years to deliver $54bn annual sales “competing against the world’s largest technology companies.”
Mr Bezos has resigned as chief executive this summer, though he will continue in the less hands-on role of executive chairman. He will be thrived by AWS’s chief executive Andy Jassy.
Nicholas Hyett, Equity Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown mentioned Amazon’s outcomes were “stellar” particularly given the extra costs allied with doing business during the pandemic.
He said, “Amazon’s modus operandi has always been to pour internally generated cash into new investment opportunities wherever possible – but at present it seems to be struggling to find homes for its embarrassment of riches. This could be a golden age for the group. With high streets shut, Amazon is a natural home for consumers’ spare cash, AWS services remote working, which has suddenly become the norm, and tech wizardry is all the more useful when we can’t see friends and family in person.”
Amazon also mentioned although the pandemic was retreating in some markets it estimated its sales and profits to endure to develop, and it still estimated a further $1.5bn costs related to Covid-19.
The firm has proclaimed it plans to elevate the payment for its half a million US employees at a cost of more than $1bn. The firm has faced long-running criticism over pay and working conditions, counting to entitlement that workers are under lots of pressure they can’t take toilet breaks and that it was failing to retain warehouse staff safty from coronavirus infection.
Amazon even made an announcement a raft of measures to backing employee health. It has launched vaccinations to 300,000 employees and contractors in the US and “will soon expand to frontline employees in other countries”.
The group will be continuing to spread its range of shopping services and platforms, including Amazon Scout, a fully electric autonomous delivery system that “rolls down the sidewalk at walking pace and delivers items right to customers”. Scout is also functioning in four US states.
Other recent innovations includes Amazon Pharmacy, which permits Amazon Prime members to protect money on prescriptions, Prime Wardrobe which offers personal shopping services and Discover Rooms, which the company defined as “an immersive shopping experience that helps customers browse and shop from thousands of home room designs”.
