Amazon grew sales 10% year over year again, reaching a new quarterly high in its fiscal Q4, which ended Dec. 31, 2024.
At the same time, Amazon operating income increased 61% year over year, CEO Andy Jassy told investors on the merchant’s Q4 earnings call.
Entering the holiday season, Amazon had the lowest online prices for the eighth year in a row, Jassy said, citing a report. It found that Amazon’s provide, on average, were 14% lower than other leading retailers in the U.S.
The retailer launched Amazon Haul, a competitor to Shein and Temu, during the quarter. Amazon Haul focuses on low-price products. Jassy said it’s “off to a very strong start,” without quantifying sales from that storefront.
Jassy also said consumers saved more than $15 billion in Q4 via Amazon’s “record-setting events during Prime Big Deal Days in October and Black Friday and Cyber Monday around Thanksgiving.”
And because 2024 was a leap year, chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said the extra day contributed to about $1.5 billion in Amazon’s Q1 net sales, impacting all segments.
Amazon ranks No. 1 in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 Database. The database is how Digital Commerce 360 tracks the largest North American online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database. That database ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).
Amazon sales in Q4 and full-year 2024
Worldwide, Amazon Q4 sales increased 10% year over year to reach $187.8 billion.
Of that, $115.6 billion came from Amazon’s sales in North America. That’s a 10% year-over-year increase. Internationally, Amazon sales in Q4 grew 9% year over year to $43.4 billion in Q4.
At the same time, Amazon Q4 operating income in North America was $9.3 billion, up $2.8 billion from the prior year. Internationally, Amazon’s operating income in Q4 was $1.3 billion, up $1.7 billion from the previous year’s loss.
Overall, operating margin increased 3%, which Olsavsky said marked the eighth straight quarter in which Amazon saw margin improvement both in North America and its international segment.
For the full year 2024, Amazon net sales increased to $628.0 billion. That’s 11% growth over Amazon’s $574.8 billion in 2023 sales.
In North America, Amazon 2024 sales increased 10% year over year to $387.5 billion. Meanwhile, internationally, sales increased 9% year over year to $142.9 billion.
Amazon operating income for 2024 increased $68.6 billion. That compares with $36.9 billion in 2023.
The majority of that came from Amazon Web Services (AWS, which brought in $39.8 billion in 2024, up from $24.6 billion the year before). In North America, Amazon operating income was $25.0 billion, up from $14.9 billion the year before. Internationally, operating income was $3.8 billion for the year, compared with an operating loss of $2.7 billion in 2023.
AWS revenue growth in Q4
In Q4, Amazon revenue from AWS grew 19% year over year to reach $28.8 billion, Olsavsky said.
“During the fourth quarter, we continue to see growth in both generative AI and non-generative AI offerings as companies turn their attention to newer initiatives, bring more workloads to the cloud, restart or accelerate existing migrations from on-premise to the cloud and tap into the power of generative AI,” he told investors. “Customers recognize to get the full benefit of generative AI, they have to move to the cloud.”
AWS reported operating income of $10.6 billion, up $3.5 billion year over year in Q4.
In 2024, Amazon sales from AWS increased 19% year over year to $107.6 billion. It now has a $115 billion annualized revenue run rate, Jassy said.
AWS operating income alone in 2024 was larger than all of Amazon’s operating income combined in 2023.
Amazon fulfillment speed
In 2024, Amazon expanded its number of same-day delivery sites by more than 60%, Jassy said.
Overall, it delivered 9 billion units for same- or next-day delivery worldwide in 2024, he added. Amazon has been redesigning its U.S. inbound network, making efforts to improve the placement of its inventory to make deliveries more efficient. And it saw efficiency in Q4 specifically, Jassy said.
“Ahead of Black Friday in November, we’d improved the percentage of ordered units available in the ideal building by over 40% year-over-year,” he said.
In addition to that, Jassy said, Amazon has “spent considerable time” optimizing the number of items it sends customers in a single package. That reduces packaging, is more convenient for customers, and is less expensive for Amazon to fulfill, he added. Moreover, Amazon’s per-unit transportation costs “continue to decline” as it builds out and optimizes its last-mile network, he said.
Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s Amazon sales and earnings article.
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