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Amazon has reported a 40% rise in net sales for the second quarter compared to the same time last year, while operating income soared by 87%.
In its second quarter report (for the three months to 30th June), the online retailer said net sales hit $88.9bn in the second quarter, compared with $63.4bn in 2019's Q2. Operating income rose to $5.8bn, with net income hitting $5.2bn.
In the US, sales rocketed to $55.4bn (from $38.6bn in 2019), while international sales, which include the UK, increased to $22.7bn from $16.4bn.
The increases came despite founder Jeff Bezos previously vowing to spend more than $4bn, its predicted second quarter operating profits, on measures to mitigate the coronavirus impact. Bezos said: “This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn’t be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe. As expected, we spent over $4bn on incremental Covid-19-related costs in the quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers in this time of high demand—purchasing personal protective equipment, increasing cleaning of our facilities, following new safety process paths, adding new back-up family care benefits, and paying a special thank you bonus of over $500m to front-line employees and delivery partners.
“We’ve created over 175,000 new jobs since March, and are in the process of bringing 125,000 of these employees into regular, full-time positions. And third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than Amazon’s first-party sales.”
The firm said it expected net sales to be between $87bn and $93bn, or to grow between 24% and 33% in the third quarter when compared to last year's Q3. Operating income is expected to be between $2bn and $5bn, compared with $3.2bn in the third quarter of 2019. The guidance assumes more than $2bn in costs related to Covid-19.