Amazons has revealed its first-quarter profits for 2018, and the growth is staggering.
According to the results, the company posted a revenue of $US51 billion, smashing analysts’ expectations by almost $US2 billion.
The profit was up by more than $US15 billion compared to the same period in 2017.
Analysts are pinning the huge revenue boost down to Amazon’s Prime subscription service which has recently pulled in 100 million new users, despite an increased subscription fee.
According to The Guardian, Amazon amassed roughly $US550 million daily from its Amazon.com sales, web hosting, TV production and Whole Foods; a US supermarket chain purchased by the company last year.
On top of this, the tech giant saw huge revenue growth from its ‘cloud computing division’ Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Amazon shares have also increased by more than 50 per cent over the past six months.
Speaking on the rapid growth, Credit Suisse’s Stephen Ju said: “Amazon is one of the best positioned to capture the next wave of retail dollars coming online.”
“Apparel and groceries remain large pools of dollars still left to come online, and Prime Wardrobe and the linkup between Whole Foods Market content and Prime Now distribution will serve as the spearheads to address those opportunities,” he added.
The results follow a wave of fierce criticism of the company lead by President Trump who has accused Bezos of failing to pay tax.
I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018
Even locally, Amazon is copping heat from sceptics.
At a recent conference in Sydney, marketing guru Brad Berens pleaded with adland to “destroy Amazon”.
“Amazon is not your friend, it’s a remorseless shark that never stops eating, moving and it’s going to attack you from a direction that you don’t expect”.
“When you say, ‘hey Alexa, I need Duracell batteries.’ Alexa replies, ‘Sorry I don’t have them, but we do have Amazon home brand batteries.’ In simple terms, they are training users to accept the generic. Brands vanish in a voice environment.”
This is why, according to Berens, “Brands should be doing everything they can to destroy Amazon and doubling down with Google.” He dismissed Apple with one sentence: “Siri is not interested in selling things.”