Amazon.com saw its net sales increase 43 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to USD 51.0 billion, beating its guidance. Operating profit jumped 92 percent to USD 1.9 billion, also better than expected, and net profit more than doubled, to USD 1.6 billion or USD 3.27 per share, from USD 724 million or USD 1.48 per share a year earlier.
The growth was led by Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud services arm. AWS revenues rose 49 percent to USD 5.4 billion, and operating profit jumped 57 percent to USD 1.4 billion. Amazon Ceo Jeff Bezos said AWS benefited from starting seven years before any serious competition arrived on the market.
Amazon's operating cash flow increased 4 percent to USD 18.2 billion for the trailing twelve months, while free cash flow was down from USD 7.3 billion from USD 10.1 billion. The company ended the period with USD 21.9 billion in cash and equivalents.
For the second quarter, Amazon forecast revenues of USD 51-54 billion, equal to growth of 34-42 percent. Operating profit is expected at USD 1.1-1.9 billion, compared with USD 628 million in second quarter 2017.
The company also announced that it plans to increase the price of its Prime service to USD 119 per year from USD 99. CFO Brian Olsavsky announced on the conference call about results that the Prime price will increase from 11 May for new members and from 16 June for existing subscribers, The Verge reports. The price hike, which follows the company passing the milestone of 100 million Prime users, is due to growing costs for delivery and other services, the company said.
