Amazon Is Finally Profitable, Earns $2.5 Billion Over the Last Three Months (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Amazon topped $2 billion in quarterly profit for the first time in its history, an impressive run fueled by continued growth in Prime subscriptions, cloud computing and its nascent advertising business. Amazon said Thursday that it earned $2.5 billion in profit for the three months ending in June, a staggering jump from the $197 million it posted in the same period last year. It marked the third consecutive quarter that Amazon has topped $1 billion in profit, a remarkable feat for a company once known for investing so much in its business that it often lost money. "The profitability trajectory appears to be accelerating quicker than expected," Daniel Ives, an analyst with GBH Insights, wrote in an investor note Thursday. Ives called this a "potential game changer" as Amazon continues to invest heavily in fulfillment centers, new stores and pricey content deals....

Earlier this month, Amazon's market value topped $900 billion for the first time, putting it on the cusp of eclipsing Apple as the world's most valuable company.
Amazon's cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, had $6 billion in sales, while Amazon's $119-a-year "Prime" service for faster shipping now has more than 100 million users.

Qwartz says the results -- which are over 12 times more than Amazon earned in the same quarter a year ago -- prove that Amazon "can make loads of money when it actually feels like it."

Comments

Re:Good

[mysidia]

If employees wanted to share in Amazon profit increases, then they should have used some of their wages to purchase shares of Amazon stock. And No... (1) Amazon can't afford to do that: At least not for a significant portion of Amazon employees (Managers and those responsible for profit can be rewarded). At least not until Amazon automates their business and massively reduces the number of required employees (then the remaining employees can be paid more). And (2) Business doesn't work that way. One of the largest expenses for a retailer is employee costs, and any profitable company is absolutely required to minimize employee costs along the supply channel of goods from source to customer as much as possible.

For example: Amazon has approximately 560,000 employees. If Amazon increased its employee costs by $4000/Year/Employee, that would be a $2.24 Billion dollars/Year cost, thus completely erasing their profit --- Erasing even a NOTICEABLE portion of the revenue/profit would be fiscally irresponsible.

Keep in mind that each Dollar paid to an employee for wages is MORE than $1 in employee costs -- due to things such as Unemployment insurance,15% Employer Match for Social Security and Medicare. and employer match for 401K benefits, health insurance, etc.

This is excellent news for Uncle Sam

[hyades1]

I hear they also paid record taxes in the US. Something like a dollar ninety-eight on that two billion.

Or maybe a little less.

Re: Good

[saloomy]

What the hell are you on about? Why would you raise taxes on the rich to support a minimum wage? The minimum wage isn't subsidized by taxes. Lowering business taxes and employment taxes would support higher wages, since it comes from the coffers of companies. Also, slavery is involuntary. The employees at amazon can quit at any moments notice.

I agree they should earn more, and they can. Every bank in the US has a trading account product. They could simply procure shares in the company they work. Had they done so at Amazon, they'd be pretty happy right now.

It would be corrosion to force the employees to work for amazon if they were unhappy with the terms. But it would also be coercion of all the stock holders and of amazon to force them to pay a certain wage.

Now, not with all companies, but certainly a lot of tech stocks are in many portfolios, which back 401k's, union pension funds, retirement investment accounts, and many retail investors who earn not much cash but who are trying to invest in their future. Let's not hurt them to forcibly help the amazon employee. Especially when the amazon employee could save some of their income and purchase stock, joining the former group pretty easily.