Amazon Q4 and FY 2023 Earnings: Free Cash Flow Engine - Activate!

Amazon reported its earnings yesterday and with it, served notice to the retail industry that it's profitability-challenged 2022 was fully in the rear view mirror. Investors loved what they had to say, and in a huge turn of events, started wondering what Amazon would do with its growing pile of cash.

Sounds like a good place to be. Let's get into it:

FY 2023:

* Net sales increased 12% to $574.8 billion in 2023, compared with $514.0 billion in 2022.

* Operating income increased to $36.9 billion in 2023, compared with $12.2 billion in 2022. Tripled operating income.

And now for the eye-popping turnaround:

- NA operating income was $14.9 billion, compared with an operating loss of $2.8 billion in 2022.

* Net income was $30.4 billion in 2023, compared with a net loss of $2.7 billion, in 2022.

Q4 2023:

* Net sales increased 14% to $170.0 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $149.2 billion in fourth quarter 2022. (stable to Q3 growth)

- NA increased 13% (growth up), International increased 17%

- AWS increased 13% year-over-year to $24.2 billion. (vs Q3 12%)

* Operating income increased to $13.2 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $2.7 billion in fourth quarter 2022.

- NA op income was $6.5 billion, compared with an operating loss of $0.2 billion in fourth quarter 2022. ($4.3B in Q3)

Clearly the company has remembered how to make money. Oh yeah, put inventory closer and reduce transportation costs. More to come here.

* Net income increased to $10.6 billion in the fourth quarter, up from 9.9 billion in Q3 2023.

Q4 Segment Data

* Seller Services: 3P Revenue Up 19% y/y (+20% yearly) (2023 FY revenue 139.9B)

* Advertising: $14.6B, up 26% y/y, (2023 FY revenue 46.7B)

Q1 2024 Guidance:

* Net sales are expected to be between $138.0 billion and $143.5 billion, or to grow between 8% and 13% compared with first quarter 2023. (down)

* Operating income is expected to be between $8.0 billion and $12.0 billion, compared with $4.8 billion in first quarter 2023.

* No full-year 2024 guidance, boo!

Tidbits:

* # items same day or overnight up 65% y/y

* AWS lion share of optimization has happened, new projects have restarted. (good sign for software vendors)

* 3P Seller Unit Mix up to 61% from 60% (vs 1P)

* “This Q4 was a record-breaking Holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon,” Andy Jassy

* Increased total viewership for the second season of Thursday Night Football (TNF) on Prime Video by 24% year over year,

* • Salesforce, which runs much of its cloud on AWS, expanded its global partnership.

(your move, Larry Ellison)

* Announced Rufus, a new generative AI-powered conversational shopping experience. This one could go south fast. Reserving judgment :-)

* Notably missing - grocery. But you knew that right? Amazon's physical store strategy is MIA and is in the "willing to be misunderstood" (or even forgotten) phase.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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