“We had a strong third quarter as our cost to serve and speed of delivery in our Stores business took another step forward, our AWS growth continued to stabilize, our Advertising revenue grew robustly, and overall operating income and free cash flow rose significantly. The benefits of moving from a single national fulfillment network in the US to eight distinct regions are exceeding our optimistic expectations, and perhaps most importantly, putting us on pace to deliver the fastest delivery speeds for Prime customers in our 29-year history”, commented Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO.

Third Quarter Results

In the third quarter of the current fiscal year, Amazon’s total net sales grew by 13%, on a comparable basis to the same period of 2022, reaching 143.1 billion US dollars.

The North American sales segment contributed 87.9 billion US dollars to the total revenue for the quarter, which reflects an increase of 11% as compared to the same period of last year, while internationally, the company’s sales rose by 16% year-over-year to 32.1 billion US dollars. The AWS segment accounted for the remaining 23.1 billion US dollars, up by 12% year-over-year.

Amazon’s operating income totalled 11.2 billion US dollars in the third quarter of the year, increasing from the 2.5 billion US dollars recorded in a similar period of the previous year.

In the three months to the 30^th of September, the online giant posted a net income of 9.9 billion US dollars, or 0.94 US dollars per diluted share, on a comparable basis to the net income of 2.9 billion US dollars, or 0.28 US dollars per diluted share, registered in the third quarter of 2022.

Fourth Quarter Guidance

For the fourth quarter of 2023, Amazon expects to reach between 160.0 billion US dollars and 167.0 billion US dollars in net sales, an increase of from 7% to 12%, as compared to the same period of last year. Operating income for the last quarter is estimated to range from 7.0 billion US dollars to 11.0 billion US dollars, as compared to 2.7 billion US dollars in the same quarter a year ago.