Amazon’s profits soar 220 percent as pandemic drives shopping online.

With the pandemic shifting gross sales on-line and customers flush with stimulus checks, Amazon on Thursday reported $108.5 billion in gross sales within the first three months of the yr, up 44 % from a yr earlier. It additionally posted $8.1 billion in revenue, a rise of 220 % from the identical interval final yr.

The primary-quarter outcomes surpassed Wall Avenue’s expectations. Shares have been up as a lot as 5 % in aftermarket buying and selling.

Essentially the most worthwhile components of Amazon’s retail enterprise boomed. Income from retailers itemizing objects on its web site and utilizing its warehouses was up 64 %, to $23.7 billion. Its “different” enterprise section, which is basically its profitable promoting enterprise, elevated 77 %, to nearly $7 billion.

Amazon beforehand disclosed that 200 million individuals pay for Prime memberships, and subscription income for that service and others reached nearly $7.6 billion within the quarter. Along with paying Amazon $119 a yr or $12.99 a month without spending a dime transport and different perks, households with Prime memberships sometimes spend $3,000 a yr on Amazon, greater than twice what households with out the membership spend, in response to Morgan Stanley.

The excessive quantity of orders through the pandemic has let Amazon function extra effectively. It has run its warehouses nearer to full capability, and supply drivers have made extra stops on their routes, with much less time driving between clients. The variety of objects Amazon offered grew 44 %, however the fee to satisfy these orders was up solely 31 %.

The pandemic’s shift to distant computing was additionally a boon to Amazon’s worthwhile cloud computing enterprise, Amazon Net Companies, which had $13.5 billion in gross sales.

“We actually had sturdy volumes actually throughout all of our companies,” Amazon’s finance chief, Brian Olsavsky, stated on a name with reporters. He stated the corporate is investing closely in future progress. It spent nearly $50 billion in capital expenditures within the final 12 months, largely on constructing out its logistics operations and knowledge facilities, up 80 % over a yr earlier. Mr. Olsavsky stated he anticipated “one other sturdy yr” for capital spending.

“In simply 15 years, AWS has turn out to be a $54 billion annual gross sales run charge enterprise competing towards the world’s largest expertise corporations, and its progress is accelerating,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief govt, stated in an announcement. Mr. Bezos plans to step down as chief govt later this yr and transition into the position of govt chairman.

Amazon’s complete work power dipped barely between December and the tip of March, falling by 27,000 to 1,271,000 workers globally. That was nonetheless 51 % extra employees than the identical interval final yr. On Wednesday, Amazon introduced it might enhance pay for half 1,000,000 employees and was hiring “tens of hundreds” extra.