Amazon.com reported stellar net sales of $51.0 billion for Q1 2018, up 43% over last year, including $1.6 billion from favorable foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter. Net income was $1.6 billion in the first quarter, or $3.27 per diluted share, compared with net income of $724 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, in first quarter 2017.
As usual, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was a major contributor to this growth. AWS sales for the quarter amounted to $5.442 billion, up 49% year over year
“AWS had the unusual advantage of a seven-year head start before facing like-minded competition, and the team has never slowed down,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “As a result, the AWS services are by far the most evolved and most functionality-rich. AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day. That’s why you’re seeing this remarkable acceleration in AWS growth, now for two quarters in a row. A huge thank you to all our AWS customers, and you can be sure we’ll keep working hard for you.”
During Q1, AWS launched two Availability Zones and one Local Region in Osaka, Japan. It now operates 54 Availability Zones within 18 geographic Regions, and one Local Region, with announced plans for 12 more Availability Zones and four more regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Sweden, and a second AWS GovCloud Region in the U.S. coming online between now and early 2019.
