In a world closer to recession than boom, Amazon is holding its own: the company founded by Jeff Bezos published, Thursday, February 2, a turnover up 9%, to 149.2 billion dollars (137 billion euros) for the fourth quarter of 2022. Its growth is admittedly relatively weak compared to the 38% known in 2020 due to the explosion of e-commerce in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. And its progress remains slow compared to the 22% posted in 2021. But the figure published on Thursday exceeded the forecasts of analysts and Amazo, and is identical to that of the whole of 2022: + 9%. It would even have been 12% if the company had not experienced negative currency effects, assured management.
Profitability has certainly become negative from an accounting point of view: 2.7 billion dollars (2.4 billion euros) of net loss in 2022, against 33.4 billion dollars of net profit in 2021 But much of it is due to the “fluctuation” in the valuation of Amazon’s stake in automaker Rivian (its earnings contribution fell from $11.8 billion to −$12.7 billion). Operating profit rose from $24 billion to $12 billion over the year.
To put things into perspective again, Amazon specifies that it had to collect in the fourth quarter $ 2.7 billion in restructuring costs linked to the savings made since the summer. In an unprecedented move, the company notably reduced the surface area of the premises or paused the deployment of Amazon Fresh grocery stores, then announced the unprecedented dismissal of 18,000 people in early January. The CEO, Andy Jassy, has also promised, in a conference with investors, that he would find other sources of savings in his now gigantic organization: to meet demand during the pandemic, the surface of warehouses has been doubled, along with the number of employees, to 1.5 million, while a last-mile delivery network “the size of the UPS one” was deployed, he recalled.
Signs of running out of steam on the side of AWS
In its historic business, e-commerce, Amazon is, with its low prices, well positioned for consumers who “pay more attention to their spending due to inflation”, assured Mr. Jassy. Up 13% in the United States, activity fell by 8% in the rest of the world and was in deficit. But the direction is showing “confident”, while revenues from Prime subscriptions (fast delivery, video, music, etc.) are up 13%.
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