Amazon Profit Shows Resilience Despite Labor, Supply Crunch

The tech and e-commerce giant reported $137.4 billion in quarterly revenue, up from $125.6 billion in the same period a year ago. Profit rose to $14.3 billion, from $7.2 billion a year ago. The financial results were a surprise to some analysts who expected earnings to be more subdued as Amazon dealt with rising costs on a variety of fronts.

Amazon shares rose more than 14% in after-hours trading Thursday. The company signaled a more positive outlook than previous quarters even though growth has slowed. It said it expects operating income to be between $3 billion and $6 billion for the current quarter, compared with $8.9 billion during the first quarter 2021. Per-share earnings were more than seven times the average of $3.63 a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

“Over the holidays, we saw higher costs driven by labor supply shortages and inflationary pressures, and these issues persisted into the first quarter due to Omicron,” Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a statement. “Despite these short-term challenges, we continue to feel optimistic and excited about the business as we emerge from the pandemic.”

Amazon said it would raise the price of its Prime membership service from $119 a year to $139, citing higher costs related to wages and transportation, as well as continued expansion of benefits under the membership. The company last raised the program’s cost in 2018. Memberships include access to Amazon’s fast delivery service as well as video streaming and other entertainment.

Even as Amazon shares rallied on the news, several of the world’s biggest technology companies struggled Thursday, a signal that the tech boom that powered the U.S. stock market and some of the country’s economic resilience in recent years is coming under pressure. While many saw their shares rise after reporting strong sales and earnings growth in the fourth quarter, others fell precipitously in the face of a labor shortage, changes in advertising markets and inflation pressure.

Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly known as Facebook Inc.) reported a decline in its user base and said its advertising business had been hit hard by Apple’s new privacy measures. Meta’s shares fell by more than 20%, and shares of PayPal Holdings Inc. and Spotify Technology SA fell by similar amounts.

Amazon fared better than many others during the Covid-19 pandemic, recording record earnings as consumers embraced and accelerated a shift to online shopping. The e-commerce market received a huge windfall, and no company benefited more than Amazon, which accounts for 41% of all sales online, according to the research firm Insider Intelligence. During the past two years Amazon has seen the most profitable quarters in its history.

But lately investors had come to fear that Amazon’s tremendous growth would slow amid global supply-chain disruptions and labor challenges. Amazon executives said last year that the company would spend roughly $4 billion in the fourth quarter to deal with higher freight and shipping costs, labor shortages and global supply-chain challenges. Amazon has boosted its pay for workers to an average of $18 an hour and offered sign-on bonuses of as much as $3,000 in some areas.

The results on Thursday showed that those investor concerns were well-founded. Amazon lost money in its sprawling e-commerce business, with about $206 million in operating losses in the U.S. and $1.63 billion in losses internationally.

“We continued to see increased customer demand in sales during the remainder of 2021, even as the economy opened back up,” Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said in a call with reporters Thursday. Mr. Olsavsky said the company feels positive about its labor situation at the start of the new year, despite being affected by absent workers out sick from Covid-19. Amazon’s global head count now totals about 1.6 million after adding roughly 140,000 employees during the fourth quarter.

Still, despite struggles in its e-commerce operations, Amazon was able to lean even more on new and emerging business lines, including its investment in Rivian, which saw outsize gains in an IPO. Amazon also saw tremendous growth in its highly profitable cloud-computing business and fast-growing advertisement segment.

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, which rents computing, storage and networking capability to users, saw fourth-quarter revenue rise by about 40% to $17.8 billion, while ad sales grew 32% to $9.7 billion. The cloud-computing unit accounted for more than $5 billion in operating income.

Meanwhile, the advertising division has surged as a result of new ad opportunities across Amazon’s array of businesses. Amazon for the first time ever broke out advertising revenue by name in its financials. The unit has typically been reported under a broader revenue stream.

Amazon is starting the new year with an eye on continued expansion in its business segments, particularly in entertainment. The company this year will begin to have exclusive video rights to “Thursday Night Football,” and it is waiting to close its acquisition of the Hollywood studio MGM, which is expected to bring an array of notable titles under the company’s name. Amazon agreed to pay $9 billion for MGM, including debt. The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the deal.

The company continues to deal with unionization campaigns. Union organizers have pledged to push Amazon to alter its working standards for hourly warehouse associates in areas such as work-pace requirements and breaks. Amazon, which opposes the organizing efforts, has said it is trying to listen to its workers better and has added benefits and safety training.

Amazon workers at a facility in Bessemer, Ala., this week will start to vote by mail in a union election revote, and the company is confronting possible votes in New York.

Write to Sebastian Herrera at [email protected]