Amazon grew North American sales 12% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024 and grew international sales by 10% (or by 11% excluding changes in foreign exchange rates). North America comprised 60% of the net sales mix, and International 22%. Amazon’s AWS business comprised 18% of the net sales mix.
Amazon saw worldwide paid units grow 12% in the first quarter (compared to 8% a year ago). Third-party sellers accounted for 61% of worldwide paid units in the first quarter (compared to 59% in the first quarter of 2023.)
Amazon also revealed in its earnings report that the number of people it employed full and part-time at the end of Q1 was up 4% year-over-year; at the end of the first quarter of 2023, Amazon’s headcount was 10% lower than it had been at the end of the first quarter of 2022. Geekwire provided additional color, reporting that the year-over-year growth was mainly driven by its warehouse-related operations, according to Amazon’s Chief Financial Officer, and reporting: “Amazon wants to keep corporate headcount growth flat but is still hiring selectively in some areas of the company, including generative AI.”
CNBC noted the growth of Amazon’s advertising business, reporting: “Digital advertising, a business that’s made Meta and Alphabet two of the most profitable companies on the planet, has become a booming business for Amazon as well. Ad revenue increased 24% to $11.8 billion in the first quarter from $9.5 billion a year earlier.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was quoted in the earnings press release:
“It was a good start to the year across the business, and you can see that in both our customer experience improvements and financial results. The combination of companies renewing their infrastructure modernization efforts and the appeal of AWS’s AI capabilities is reaccelerating AWS’s growth rate (now at a $100 billion annual revenue run rate); our Stores business continues to expand selection, provide everyday low prices, and accelerate delivery speed (setting another record on speed for Prime customers in Q1) while lowering our cost to serve; and, our Advertising efforts continue to benefit from the growth of our Stores and Prime Video businesses. It’s very early days in all of our businesses and we remain excited by how much more we can make customers’ lives better and easier moving forward.”
The full press release is on the investor relations page on AboutAmazon.com.
great job Amazon