Prime Video ads gave Amazon a healthy boost in Q1

The news: Amazon delivered another solid quarter of growth despite evidence of slowing consumer spending.

• Revenues rose 13% year over year (YoY) to $143.3 billion, beating LSEG’s consensus estimate of $142.5 billion.
• Earnings per share increased to $0.98, up from $0.31 last year and significantly outpacing the $0.84 estimate.
• Amazon’s advertising business grew 24% YoY in the quarter to $11.82 billion, slightly ahead of expectations, helped by the launch of Prime Video’s ad-supported tier.

More of the same: Under CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon’s strategy has been to lean into its biggest profit generators—Prime sales, advertising, AWS—while cutting costs wherever possible.

• The retailer ran its first-ever Big Spring Sale in the last weeks of Q1. While the event delivered a modest sales lift, it proved to be a successful Prime acquisition tool: Nearly one in four non-Prime shoppers (23%) ended up subscribing to the service to access better discounts, according to PYMNTS data.
• Amazon continues to be laser-focused on improving delivery speeds and offering shoppers additional convenience. Nearly 60% of Prime orders in the top 60 US metro areas arrived the same or next day in Q1, up from around 50% in Q2 2023, the company said.
• And Prime Video ads are giving Amazon’s already thriving ad business an additional boost. We expect 80% of Amazon Prime subscribers to be on the ad-supported tier this year—and advertisers’ early successes on the platform could net Amazon as much as 15% of video budgets for the year, one ad buyer told Business Insider.

Looking ahead: While Amazon’s retail business continues to grow at a healthy clip, the retailer isn’t entirely immune to economic uncertainty.

• The company forecast Q2 revenues below analysts’ expectations, due in part to softer spending from business on its cloud services. Amazon expects revenues of between $144 billion and $149 billion, or growth of 7% to 11%, missing LSEG’s estimate of 12% growth.
• Still, Amazon’s booming ad sales, coupled with its growing roster of Prime events and overall hold on the US ecommerce market, should keep its business humming along.