Successor has already been determined: Jeff Bezos is relinquishing Amazon management

Tuesday, February 02, 2021

Successor has already been determined
Jeff Bezos leaves Amazon management

Surprise at the online giant Amazon: Long-time CEO Jeff Bezos is leaving his post. However, the second richest person in the world will remain with the group. His successor is no stranger and should take over from the third quarter.

The world's largest online retailer, Amazon, is introducing a change at its top. Company founder Jeff Bezos will hand over the chairmanship to Andy Jassy, ​​the head of the booming cloud business Amazon Web Services (AWS), in the third quarter of 2021. This was announced by Amazon after the US stock market closed in Seattle.

The group is currently more "inventive" than ever before, said Bezos. "This is the optimal time for a handover." The 57-year-old is likely to continue to exert great influence as the executive chairman of the board of directors. Amazon did not provide any more precise information about the future area of ​​responsibility.

The top manager founded Amazon in 1994 and built the company from an online bookstore into a billion-dollar group. With an estimated fortune of 188 billion dollars (155.4 billion euros), Bezos is currently the second richest person in the world according to the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index".

The news about the change in leadership was accompanied by excellent business figures. The massive increase in online orders during the pandemic gave Amazon record sales in the seasonally important fourth quarter. The US group exceeded the US $ 100 billion mark for the first time. Amazon did better than analysts expected.

Hardly any company benefits from a pandemic like this

Specifically, revenues rose 44 percent to $ 125.6 billion in the period from October to December. Analysts had forecast 119.7 billion in the factset consensus. Amazon.com had promised 112 to 121 billion in October.

Hardly any other company is benefiting as much from the effects of the pandemic as Amazon. The retail business received an additional boost in the Christmas quarter from the relocation of the "Prime Day" shopping event from summer to October. The cloud business Amazon Web Services (AWS) also enjoyed strong demand.

The group’s net income rose to $ 7.2 billion from 3.3 billion in the same period last year. Earnings per share were $ 14.09. For the full year, Amazon increased sales by 37 percent to $ 380 billion. The group was able to almost double its profit to 21.3 billion.

For the current first quarter, Amazon is forecasting sales of 100 to 106 billion dollars, an increase of 33 to 40 percent over the previous year. The consensus of the analysts is so far at 95.8 billion dollars. Operating profit is expected to be $ 3.0 billion to $ 6.5 billion after $ 4 billion previously. The outlook includes costs related to Covid-19 of $ 2 billion.