First quarter sales for Amazon rose 9% in the period ended March 31, 2025, increasing to $155.7 billion from $143.3 billion a year ago. Net income, driven by huge profits in its cloud services businesses, AWS, soared 65% to $17.1 billion.
Despite the solid results, Amazon, like many American businesses, expressed some uncertainty about the future, largely due to how tariffs will affect prices and consumer spending. As a result, Amazon’s forecast for the second quarter ranged from a small decline in net income to an increase of net income up to 19%. Revenue is forecast to increase between 7% and 11%.
In remarks to analysts, CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged that first quarter sales may have benefitted from early buying by consumers who were looking to avoid higher prices once the impact of the tariffs begins to be felt in the current quarter. He conceded, however, he doesn’t have a crystal ball. “Obviously, none of us knows exactly where tariffs will settle or when,” Jassy said on the call.
If consumers did up their purchases in the first quarter, that is not good news for Amazon. Its biggest consumer-driven segment, online sales, rose a relatively modest 5% in the quarter. Other consumer-oriented businesses also saw modest gains with both its physical stores and third-party sellers segments posting sales increases of 6%. The big revenue drivers in the period were advertising, up 18%, and AWS, where sales increased 17%.
Among the many non-book highlights Amazon mentioned in its first quarter announcement were the deployment of its Project Kuiper’s satellite internet network and development of Ocelot, Amazon’s first quantum computing chip prototype.
