Amazon CEO: The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges
Amazon.com, Inc. has announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2022.
- Operating cash flow decreased 41% to $39.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $67.2 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2021.
- Free cash flow decreased to an outflow of $18.6 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an inflow of $26.4 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2021.
- Free cash flow less principal repayments of finance leases and financing obligations decreased to an outflow of $29.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an inflow of $14.9 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2021.
- Free cash flow less equipment finance leases and principal repayments of all other finance leases and financing obligations decreased to an outflow of $22.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with an inflow of $16.8 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2021.
- Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 523 million on March 31, 2022, compared with 519 million one year ago.
- Net sales increased 7% to $116.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $108.5 billion in first quarter 2021. Excluding the $1.8 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 9% compared with first quarter 2021.
- Operating income decreased to $3.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with $8.9 billion in first quarter 2021.
- Net loss was $3.8 billion in the first quarter, or $7.56 per diluted share, compared with net income of $8.1 billion, or $15.79 per diluted share, in first quarter 2021. First quarter 2022 net loss includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $7.6 billion included in non-operating expense from our common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc.
“The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO. “With AWS growing 34% annually over the last two years, and 37% year-over-year in the first quarter, AWS has been integral in helping companies weather the pandemic and move more of their workloads into the cloud. Our Consumer business has grown 23% annually over the past two years, with extraordinary growth in 2020 of 39% year-over-year that necessitated doubling the size of our fulfillment network that we’d built over Amazon’s first 25 years—and doing so in just 24 months. Today, as we’re no longer chasing physical or staffing capacity, our teams are squarely focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies throughout our fulfillment network. We know how to do this and have done it before. This may take some time, particularly as we work through ongoing inflationary and supply chain pressures, but we see encouraging progress on a number of customer experience dimensions, including delivery speed performance as we’re now approaching levels not seen since the months immediately preceding the pandemic in early 2020.”
