Amazon had better net sales during the holiday quarter than even the best forecasts, but the results still show that a company is grappling with economic slowdowns across all of its divisions.
Net sales increased 9 percent year-over-year, according to Amazon just released Q4 2022 earnings, which beats the company’s expectations, last quarter indicated that annual growth would be between 2 and 8 percent. That said, it was the least profitable Q4 ever; the company earned $0.3 billion this quarter, a sharp drop from $14.3 billion a year earlier.
And for the full year, the company posted a net loss of $2.7 billion, its first since 2014, reversing a trend of rising full-year profits and booming growth amid the pandemic. Significantly defaulted: Amazon recorded a $12.7 billion pre-tax valuation loss in 2022 due to its investment in EV company Rivian.
One area that underperformed last year was the company’s international business, where net sales fell 8 percent year-over-year in FY2022 after growing 22 percent in FY2021. The company’s other three main business segments, including the lucrative AWS business, grew less than the year before.
In early January (which is outside of the quarter being discussed today), he continued, saying the company planned to cut “just over” 18,000 jobs. The “majority” of the layoffs hit the Amazon Stores and People, Experience and Technology organizations, and CNBC reported that staffers in robotics, Zappos, payments, Prime Air and more were affected.
Last quarter, Jassy also said the company was working on a “series of initiatives” that would “create a stronger cost structure for the company going forward” and reduced costs in its store fulfillment network. On Thursday, Jassy said Amazon is “encouraged” by the progress it’s making to lower its “cost to operate in the operational part of our Stores business.”
