Photo by Bryan Angelo on Unsplash

Tech giant Amazon (AMZN) recently reported its quarterly results that failed to impress the market. Like other tech giants, the company is facing strong inflationary pressures coupled with a disturbing global political and economic climate.

Amazon’s Financials

Amazon’s first quarter revenues grew 7% to $116.44 billion, ahead of the market’s forecast of $116.3 billion. Net loss of $7.56 per share was significantly lower than the Street’s forecast of earnings of $8.36 per share.

By segment, net product sales fell 37.4% from $57.5 billion last year to $56.5 billion and net service sales increased 51.8% from $51.03 billion to $59.99 billion.

North American sales grew 40% to $69.24 billion, while international sales fell 60% to $28.8 billion.

Revenues from Amazon Web Services (AWS) increased 37% to $18.4 billion. Subscription services revenues grew 13% to $8.4 billion. Revenues from the “other” category which primarily includes advertising grew 28% to $661 million.

Amazon expects second quarter revenues of $116-$121 billion. The market was looking for revenues of $120.11 billion for the quarter, and $526.04 billion for the fiscal year.

Amazon’s Product Upgrades

Recently, Amazon announced the general availability of its Luna cloud gaming service with an expanded library of games and new features. With the new Prime Gaming Channel, Amazon Prime customers are able to try a rotating selection of free games on Luna, and players are able to access more games by subscribing to the new Retro Channel and Jackbox Games Channel. New Luna features include Live Broadcasting to Twitch and the Luna Phone Controller, which is available in the Luna Controller app for both iPhone and Android phones.

It also announced a partnership with Boeing that will extend its existing cloud operations and will streamline its approach to cloud computing. Its applications with be migrated out of on-premises data centers to AWS and create a technology foundation to strengthen engineering and manufacturing processes. AWS will power both new and existing Boeing digital applications, unlocking valuable insights, driving product innovation, more efficient operations, and improved customer support.

Unlike other block-buster quarters, this was a rather tepid quarter for Amazon. The global political and economic conditions are clearly hurting the organization. Like several other global players, Amazon too suspended operations in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion. It is no longer accepting new customers to its Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit or third-party sellers to its online retail platform who are based in Russia or Belarus. It also suspended Russian access to Prime Video and stopped taking new orders for New World, the video game Amazon sells directly in Russia. Amazon does not disclose the revenues it generates from Russia.

The company is also facing other economic challenges, including rising inflation, higher fuel and labor costs, global supply chain snarls, and continuing pandemic conditions that are all significantly impacting its margins. It is trying to offset the increase in these costs with price hikes. Recently, it introduced a 5% surcharge for some of its U.S. sellers, something that it had never imposed earlier. Last quarter, it also announced the price hike for its U.S. Prime membership to $139 from $119. This is the first price hike in the last four years.

But it is also adding new features to Prime. Last month, Amazon announced Buy with Prime — a feature that will allow Prime members to shop from online stores beyond Amazon.com using their membership. Currently, the program is in an invitation-only phase for merchants using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Amazon plans to roll out the service through 2022 to other merchants as well. Buy with Prime will allow U.S.-based Prime members to shop directly from merchants’ online stores and get access to fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and free returns on eligible orders. For merchants already using FBA, Buy with Prime will be available as a simple addition to their online store, and they will be able to receive shopper order information, including email addresses for customer orders, which they can use to provide customer service and build direct relationships with shoppers.

Its stock is trading at $2,295.45 with a market capitalization of $1.17 trillion. It had touched a 52-week high of $3,773.08 in July last year. It had fallen to a 52-week low of $2,261.50 last week.