Research archive for AMZN

Amazon has officially outpaced Walmart in quarterly revenue, reporting a record $187.8 billion last quarter, compared to Walmart's $180.6 billion. While the two retail giants have been competing for years, their business models are very different.

The last James Bond film came out in 2021. Since then, Amazon bought the franchise distributor, MGM, for $8.5 billion, but the purchase only gave Amazon 50% control and relegated them to being a passive partner when it came to artistic choices.

Capital expenditure by the US tech titans is a hot talking point, especially if you own Nvidia shares. Take a look at this image from App Economy Insights which looks at previous annual capex spend, and compares that to projections for 2025. Clearly, spending is not slowing down.

Amazon had good Q4 numbers out last week but the market seemed too focused on a modest deceleration in the fortunes of their AWS division, so the shares sold off by 4% the next day.

The Amazon Ads business has absolutely exploded. Last year it had sales of over $50 billion and has reached a point where demand has outstripped supply. In other words, there is not enough space on the top, sides and bottom of the Amazon website and app to put any more adverts.

On Tuesday, Amazon unveiled its new AI-training chip, called Trainium 2. They will use the hundreds of thousands of chips to create a giant supercomputer, which should be ready for use sometime next year. The first user of the supercomputer will be Anthropic, an AI startup which Amazon has invested $8 billion.

Amazon is doubling down on its partnership with Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude chatbot, with a fresh $4 billion investment, bringing its total funding to $8 billion. This deal strengthens ties between the two companies, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) becoming Anthropic's primary cloud and AI training partner.

Amazon is currently developing smart glasses for their delivery drivers, according to Reuters. The glasses will direct their staff during the final stages of a delivery, around and within buildings. The glasses will "provide turn-by-turn navigation on a small embedded screen."

Amazon reported an impressive quarter last week, showcasing the benefits of its well-diversified business model, cost-cutting and AI innovation. Total revenue rose 11% to $159 billion, surpassing estimates, driven by strong growth across Amazon's e-commerce, cloud services, and advertising operations.

The image below shows the average days it takes online retailers to deliver their orders versus Amazon. The gap between Amazon and the rest is just incredible. It is a true testament to the logistics juggernaut that Jeff Bezos and his team have built over the years.

On Monday, Amazon became the first of the tech titans to require all workers to return to the office five days a week. The move was a bit of a surprise to me. I had forecast that most companies, particularly those in tech, would settle on a hybrid work policy, requiring employees in the office three days a week and then allowing remote work for the other two.

Amazon is making it easier for its US customers to shop while scrolling social media apps. The e-commerce company announced a partnership with TikTok and Pinterest, where Amazon customers will be able to buy items directly through the respective platforms.

Last week Amazon released results that had many positives and a few negatives. Weak overall market sentiment has been more influential than earnings releases in recent days, so Amazon got pulled down with the rest.

Jeff Bezos is set to sell nearly $5 billion worth of Amazon shares in July, following a sale of $8.5 billion in February, bringing his total offload this year to over $13.4 billion. Those are big numbers, but his riches are well deserved in my opinion.

On Tuesday Amazon released a strong set of numbers, with AWS' growth accelerating to 17%, and advertising revenue up by over 24%. AWS is an important cash and profit generator for Amazon, and an acceleration in revenue growth is an important change. According to management, AWS customers are spending more on services for AI technology applications like chatbots and data-crunching tools.