Amazon Q1 sales up 43% to £36.9bn

Amazon has reported a 43% increase in revenue for the first quarter of the year, totalling $51bn (£36.9bn).

The online retail giant’s operating income increased 92% to $1.9bn (£1.3bn) compared with operating income of $1bn (£725m) in the first quarter of 2017.

Amazon also announced that its net income had more than doubled when compared with the previous year as it increased from $724m (£524m) to $1.6bn (£1.1bn).

The increase in revenue was driven by a $10bn (£7.2bn) increase in North America as it reached $30.7bn (£22bn) as well as International sales growing from $11bn (£7.9bn to $14.8 (£10.7bn).

“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO.

“As a result, the AWS services are by far the most evolved and most functionality-rich. AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day. That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row. A huge thank you to all our AWS customers, and you can be sure we’ll keep working hard for you.”

In the trading update Amazon also announced that net sales are expected to be between $51bn (£36.9bn) and $54bn (39bn) or to grow between 34% and 42% compared with second quarter 2017.

Operating income is also expected to be between $1.1bn (£799m) and $1.9bn (£1.3bn) compared with $628m (£456m) in Q2 2017.