Amazon Q2 profit jumped high

Online giant Amazon has released its financial results for its second quarter ending June 30, with net income for the quarter increasing from US$197 million to US$2.5 billion; a 1,186 per cent increase.

Additionally, the company found an operating income increase of 375 per cent, from US$628 million to US$3 billion.

The company notes quarterly highlights relating to product launches, such as Fire TV Edition smart TVs released in Best Buy, as well as the integration of Alexa into many of its existing products, such as Fire HD 8 and 10 tablets, and external products such as vehicles from BMW, Ford and Toyota.

“Despite its enormous size and previous run of strong growth, Amazon has had no problem in delivering another good set of numbers,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.

“It’s strong revenue growth, which saw product sales up by almost 30 per cent over the prior year, underlines its growing grip on the retail market and its ability to persuade an increasing number of customers to buy an increasing array of things from it.”

Saunders notes that while the company makes growth look easy, the results are indicative of significant efforts on at least three fronts.

“Firstly, it innovates and tries new things like no other retailer… other retailers would do well to take a leaf out of Amazon’s playbook on this front,” he said.

“Second, across all of the things it tries and tests, Amazon is extremely customer-centric. It rarely innovates by increments, but instead looks to find problems consumers face and then uses technology in creative ways to help solve them.

“Third, Amazon has created a compelling ecosystem which permeates many aspects of people’s lives.”

Looking forward to the third quarter, the company expects net sales to be between US54 – 57.5 billion, a growth of 23 to 31 per cent over last years Q3, while operating income is expected to reach between US$1.4 to $2.4 billion, compared with US$347 million.

In Australia, the company’s recent Prime Day promotion drove record traffic to its Australian marketplace, leading to the two biggest days of sales since the e-commerce giant launched in Australia.

“Prime only recently launched in Australia yet we were thrilled to see the number of Australian members visiting amazon.com.au to make the most of the great savings available to them on Prime Day,” said Rocco Braeuniger, Amazon Australia’s country manager.

Small and medium businesses, which make up the majority of sellers on Amazon’s global marketplaces, had already exceeded more than $1 billion in sales just 10 hours into the sale.