After saying earlier that profits might suffer in the second quarter amid investments related to covid-19 pandemic, Amazon has reported a doubling of its operating and net profit, with revenues up 40 percent.
Revenues for the quarter jumped 40 percent from the year before to USD 88.9 billion, including a negative forex effect of USD 582 million. The operating profit meanwhile leaped to USD 5.8 billion from 3.1 billion year-on-year, while the net profit soared to USD 5.2 billion or USD 10.30 per diluted share, from 2.6 billion and 5.22 per share. The operating cash flow increased 42 percent to USD 51.2 billion while the free cash flow rose to USD 31.9 billion from 25 billion.
Revenues from North America lifted to USD 55.4 billion from 38 billion, with the operating profit going higher to USD 2.1 billion from 1.6 billion. At International operations, revenues advanced to USD 22.6 billion from 16.4 billion while the operating result went to a profit of USD 345 million from a loss of 601 million. At AWS, revenues climbed to USD 10.8 billion from 8.4 billion, with the operating profit increasing to almost USD 3.4 billion from 2.1 billion.
CEO Jeff Bezos said this was another “highly unusual” quarter and that third-party sales again grew faster than Amazon first-party ones. The company said it invested over USD 9 billion into capital projects, including fulfilment, transportation and AWS, and spent over USD 4 billion on pandemic related costs. The money here went to protect workers, clean facilities, create new work methods, add new backup family care benefits and pay over USD 500 million worth bonuses to front-line employees and delivery partners. Bezos said the company created over 175,000 new jobs since March and is in the process of bringing 125,000 of these into regular and full-time positions. The company also donated over USD 10 million worth of personal protective equipment to various relief organisations.
Looking ahead, the company is guiding for revenues up 24-33 percent to USD 87-93 billion and an operating profit of USD 2-5 billion, including USD 2 billion worth of costs related to the coronavirus pandemic.
