Today, e-commerce giant Amazon announced its second-quarter results, which were better than expected despite inflation and a net loss of $2 billion. Amazon’s stake in Rivian is to blame for all of the loss. The net loss in the second quarter is compared to the net income of $7.8 billion in the second quarter of 2021.
In the second quarter, sales went up 7% to $121.2 billion, up from $113.1 billion in the same time period in 2021. Wall Street had thought it would be $119.3 billion, so this was better. The company said that sales for the quarter would be between $116 billion and $121 billion.
Because of the slightly good news, Amazon’s stock went up by 11% on Thursday evening.
It’s important to know that sales from online stores dropped 4.3% to $50.89 billion. Wall Street only predicted a drop of about 2 percent.
The company’s stock is down 32% so far this year, mostly because of a string of bad quarterly earnings. Amazon went down in the first quarter and lost $3.84 billion. This happened at the end of April. Not only did the results not match what Wall Street had predicted, but the company’s stock also fell 14 percent that day, which was the biggest drop in one day in 16 years.
In the company’s earnings report, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, “Despite continued inflationary pressures in fuel, energy, and transportation costs, we’re making progress on the more controllable costs we mentioned last quarter, especially improving the productivity of our fulfilment network.”
Analysts have been cautious about today’s results because Amazon is facing a lot of problems right now, such as problems with its supply chain and workers, wage increases, inflation, higher fuel prices, and the war in Ukraine.
Jassy added, “We’re also seeing an increase in revenue as we continue to improve Prime for members by investing in faster shipping speeds and adding unique benefits like free delivery from Grubhub for a year.”
Compared to other numbers, this quarter’s ad sales were higher, at $8.76 billion, an increase of 4.3%. In terms of predictions, this is right on. Advertising is an important part of the business, and it was expected to bring in $8.7 billion in revenue, which is up 21% from the previous year.