It’s another $100 billion for Amazon as sales soar

AMAZON last night smashed Wall Street expectations as it reported another $100bn quarter.

With the Covid-19 pandemic boosting demand for online shopping, the tech titan posted revenues of £77.8bn ($108.5bn) for the first three months of 2021 – up 44pc on last year.

It also more than tripled its profits from £1.8bn to £5.8bn.

Analysts had predicted sales of £75bn and profits of £3.6bn, with the blowout performance sending the firm’s shares more than 4pc higher in after-hours trading.

Amazon is fresh from its first ever $100bn quarter at the end of 2020, when huge demand for online deliveries during the Christmas period drove its sales to a record £90bn ($126bn).

And yesterday it said the bonanza was set to continue as it predicted second quarter sales of between £79bn and £83bn.

The firm has emerged as one of the major winners of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced people to spend more time at home.

That has driven huge amounts of shopping on to the internet – to Amazon’s benefit. ÷ WALL Street stocks hit new records last night off the back of strong US economic figures.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes rose after GDP was shown to have jumped by an annualised rate of 6.4pc in the first quarter of 2021, the best rate of growth since 2003. The Dow closed up 0.7pc at 34,060.36 while the S&P 500 also finished 0.7pc higher at 4211.47.