Amazon’s profits and sales have surged in its first quarter, surpassing analyst expectations and causing its share price to soar.

In North America, Amazon’s biggest market, operating profit shot up 93% to $1.1bn, while net sales rose 46% to $30.7bn in the three months to March.

The results beat analyst forecasts and saw Amazon’s share price rise 7% on Wall Street.

However, despite international revenues climbing 34% to $14.9bn, the retailer continued to make a loss outside North America, in the red by $622m.

The results follow Amazon’s revelation that its Prime loyalty club has more than 100 million members.

Amazon, which had never disclosed Prime membership numbers before, uses Prime as a way to tie consumers into its ecosystem. Its benefits include unlimited next-day delivery and free TV and film streaming.

Sales at retailer’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, also surged, rising 49% to $5.4bn.

Amazon added that it expects profits and sales to grow in the second quarter.

Topics