Cloud News
AWS Earnings Takeaways: Slow 2023 Ahead, Amazon Layoffs
Mark Haranas
Here are the five biggest AWS highlights from the company’s $21 billion fourth quarter 2022 results, which saw Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaking heavily about AWS’ future.
Amazon Web Services’ sales results thus far for its current first quarter 2023 raised some eyebrows from analysts during Amazon’s fourth quarter 2022 financial earnings results reported yesterday.
“As we look ahead, we expect these [customer] optimization efforts will continue to be a headwind to AWS growth in at least the next couple of quarters,” said Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer of Amazon, during the technology giant’s earnings report on Thursday.
In a surprise appearance, CEO Andy Jassy attended Amazon’s earnings call with analysts with much to say about the vision for AWS and its future.
“I might jump on the calls from time to time moving forward. And given that this last quarter was the end of my first full year in this role, and given some of the unusual parts in the economy and our business—I thought this might be a good one to join,” said Andy Jassy, who was AWS’ former CEO before taking over the reigns at Amazon in July 2021.
CRN breaks down the five biggest takeaways from Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report Thursday including comments of Amazon’s 18,000 layoffs, its cloud sales forecast the first quarter of 2023 and Jassy’s bullish comments on AWS future.
[Related: AWS CTO Slams ChatGPT: ‘Not Concerned About The Truth’]
AWS Earning Results
Before diving into the biggest takeaways from last night’s earnings report, here’s a look at AWS’ revenue results for the fourth quarter 2022, which ended Dec. 31, 2022.
The Seattle-based cloud market share leader generated total sales of $21.38 billion in the fourth quarter, representing a growth rate of 20 year over year.
This marked one of AWS’ slowest sales growth rates in recent years. For example, in fourth quarter 2021, AWS sales increased 40 percent year over year. During its recent third quarter 2022, AWS revenue increased 28 percent year over year.
Operating income was $5.2 billion for AWS in fourth quarter 2022, compared to $5.3 billion in fourth quarter 2021.
In terms of full year 2022 revenues, AWS captured total revenue of $80.1 billion, up 29 percent year over year. Operating income at AWS in 2022 was $22.8 billion, compared to $18.5 billion in 2021.
Here are the five biggest AWS earnings takeaways from Amazon’s fourth quarter 2022 report.
