Amazon reports record quarterly profit

This article was originally published by Dalila Bouaziz.

Amazon on Thursday reported a record profit for the January-March period as consumers shifted to online shopping amid the health crisis and companies paid more to have their products stored and sold on the marketplace.

According to Wall Street after-hours results, the online retail giant posted first-quarter net sales of $108.52 billion, up 44% from $75.45 billion a year earlier. Analysts were forecasting a figure of $104.47 billion, Reuters reported.

Amazon inched up its net profit more than threefold to $8.1 billion in the January-March period, a sign that the desire for online shopping is not waning as some countries, including the US, gradually emerge from the pandemic.

Its cloud computing services subsidiary, AWS, continues to account for the largest share of the group's profits. Its 32% increase in turnover exceeded 13.5 billion dollars in the first quarter.