New York (CNN) � Amazon ’s sales boomed on strong demand in the second quarter for its wide range of products, from fast delivery for Prime deals to ads, fueling a massive jump in profit from a year ago.
Sales grew 11% to $134.4 billion. That’s an increase from $121.2 billion in the second quarter of 2022. The number exceeded analyst predictions of $131.4 billion revenue.
The stock surged nearly 10% in after-hours trading. Amazon’s stock has risen 52% year to date, one of a handful of tech stocks that has helped power the market higher this year.
The company’s profit jumped sharply compared to this quarter last year. Its net income was $6.7 billion in the second quarter, compared to a net loss of $2 billion in second quarter of 2022. It soared past Refinitiv analyst predictions of $3.592 billion in earnings.
Investors were closely watching customer spending in both the cloud and retail markets.
On the retail side, CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement that the company was able to save both time and cost on delivery.
In addition, Amazon Web Services has long been a cash cow for the company. Last quarter, that segment’s sales rose 16% after a period of slowed growth as cloud users worried about the economy’s health. This quarter’s AWS sales increased 12%, a small slowdown.
In the statement, Jassy said “a slew of generative AI releases� has allowed its cloud business to remain a leader, competing with the likes of Google and Microsoft . Jassy also added that AWS growth has “stabilized.�
Though a big bet on AI hasn’t translated into faster gains for AWS yet, the tech giant is optimistic about its future, experimenting with the e-commerce shopping experience as well. It’s working to use AI to about products on the site.
Jassy added there is continued “strong demand� for Amazon’s advertising services. Its ad business jumped 22% to $10.7 billion.
“We continued lowering our cost to serve in our fulfillment network, while also providing Prime customers with the fastest delivery speeds we’ve ever recorded,� Jassy said in the statement.
Amazon said it expects its third-quarter sales to grow between 9% and 13% compared to the previous year’s quarter.
The-CNN-Wire
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