Amazon second-quarter sales soar but pandemic surge slows

Amazon recorded a 27% jump in net sales to $113bn (£81bn) in its second quarter, ending June 30, 2021, while net income climbed 48.4% to a record $7.8bn (£5.6bn).

Despite this impressive sales momentum, Amazon’s rate of revenue growth was down compared to the 41% year-on-year uplift recorded for the same quarter in 2020.

The online marketplace’s North America sales rose 21.9% during the period, around half the rate of growth it has recorded over the past four quarters.

This more subdued sales growth came despite Amazon moving its international Prime Day sales event to take place in June rather than October as in the previous year – a move that had increased revenue growth by 4% in the second quarter, chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts.

Amazon’s international sales rose 35.5% during the period, while sales of its cloud computing division AWS rose 37%. AWS contributed 54.4% of its operating income, down from 57.5% in the same quarter last year.

Amazon said it expects third-quarter sales of between $106bn and $112bn (£76bn-£80bn), which will be up 16% year on year but down on the previous quarter. The retailer forecasts that net income in its third quarter will stand between $2.5bn and $6bn (£1.8bn-£4.3bn), compared with $6.2bn (£4.4bn) during the same period last year.

Chief executive Andy Jassey said: “Over the past 18 months, our consumer business has been called on to deliver an unprecedented number of items, including PPE, food, and other products that helped communities around the world cope with the difficult circumstances of the pandemic. At the same time, AWS has helped so many businesses and governments maintain business continuity, and we’ve seen AWS growth reaccelerate as more companies bring forward plans to transform their businesses and move to the cloud.”

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