Once again, Amazon.com Inc. earnings grew nearly across the board in its fiscal third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. Amazon reported an 11% increase in Q3 net sales, slightly outpacing its sales growth in its previous quarter — 10%.
During the Q3 earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon’s Stores business saw a 9% year-over-year sales increase in North America. Sales also grew 12% internationally.
“At a time when consumers are being careful about how much they spend, we’re continuing to lower prices and ship even more quickly, and we can see this resonating with customers as our unit growth continues to be strong and outpace even our revenue growth,” Jassy told investors on the Amazon earnings call.
Although it did not specify how much it brought in during its Prime Big Deal Days sale in October, Jassy said Amazon helped Prime members save more than $5 billion across 50 million deals.
The sales event was Amazon’s way of kicking off the holiday season, Amazon said. Amazon plans to hire 250,000 U.S. employees for the holiday season. Jassy also highlighted major upcoming initiatives, including “tens of millions of deals,” an NFL Black Friday game, and more than 100 new cloud and AI features.
Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000 Database. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America by annual web sales. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database, which ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).
How much did Amazon make in sales during Q3 2024?
In Q3 2024, Amazon net sales reached $158.88 billion. That’s up from $143.1 billion in Q3 2023.
It’s also the largest sales sum Amazon has brought in during a Q3 and the second-largest ever, behind only Q4 2023, when the company brought in $170 billion in net sales.
In North America specifically, Amazon sales grew 9% year over year to $95.5 billion. International sales grew at a faster rate — 12% — with that segment reaching 435.9 billion. Sales from Amazon Web Services (AWS) increased 19% year over year to $27.5 billion.
Operating income grew 56% year over year, to $17.4 billion from $11.2 billion. In North America, Amazon operating income reached $5.7 billion, up from $4.3 billion in the prior-year quarter. International operating income grew to $1.3 billion, a steep reversal from a $0.1 billion operating loss in Q3 2023. AWS operating income also grew, to $10.4 billion in Q3 2024 from $7.0 billion in Q3 2023.
Meanwhile, net income increased to $15.3 billion, compared to $9.9 billion in Q3 2023.
Amazon’s newest way to drive faster fulfillment
Jassy told investors that Amazon is focused on lowering its fulfillment costs. That starts with changing how it brings items into its fulfillment network, extending to how it subsequently spreads those products to Amazon’s “regional fulfillment nodes.”
In the last few months, he said, Amazon has “made hundreds of changes” to its U.S. inbound network. It has also opened more than 15 inbound buildings. So far, that has resulted in a 25% increase in Amazon’s ability to spread inventory across its fulfillment centers, Jassy told investors.
That allows Amazon “to have more of the requisite items in fulfillment centers closest to the customer, so we can compile shipments and ship to customers even more quickly,” Jassy said. “As we scale and optimize this new design, we expect these changes will further improve inventory placement, offer faster delivery time, save transportation costs, and enable us to increase units shipped per box.”
He added that Amazon is continuing to roll out same-day delivery facilities. He referred to those facilities as the fastest way to get products to customers, as well as one of Amazon’s lowest-cost ways to deliver products. Amazon fulfilled more than 40 million customers’ orders with same-day delivery in Q3, Jassy said. That’s more than a 25% increase year over year, he added.
Amazon also continues to invest in robotics to make its fulfillment network safer and more efficient, Jassy said. It launched a new fulfillment center design in Shreveport, Louisiana, that incorporates its “newest robotics inventions that simplify stowing, picking, packing, and shipping processes.”
So far, the new design has reduced fulfillment processing time by 25%, he said. It also increases the number of items Amazon can offer for same- and next-day delivery. Amazon anticipates the new design to drive a 25% improvement in cost to serve during peak periods, Jassy said.
“Though we believe we have more expansive automation and robotics than other retail peers, it’s still early days in how much automation we expect in our fulfillment network,” Jassy added.
Expanding generative AI tools
Amazon has expanded its generative AI-powered shopping assistant, Rufus, to:
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Spain
- The United Kingdom
In the United States, Jassy said, Amazon has added more personalization, debuting AI Shopping Guides for consumers. This “simplifies product research by using Generative AI to pair key factors to consider in a product category,” he said.
For sellers, Amazon has launched what it calls Project Amelia, an AI system that offers “business insights to boost productivity and drive seller growth.”
Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s Amazon earnings article.
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