Amazon laid off another 9000,<> employees in order to reduce costs, and launched Bedrock to join the AI competition

Author: Lu Hanzhi

Amid slowing sales and increased economic uncertainty, Amazon continued to reduce costs and increase efficiency. On April 4, Amazon announced its financial results for the first quarter of 28.

According to the financial report, Amazon's net sales in the first quarter of 2023 increased by 9% to $1274.11 billion, the same growth rate as the previous quarter. Sales in North America increased 769% to $1.291 billion, and sales from international increased 214% to $16.2014 billion. Amazon's core business, AWS, achieved net sales of $20.<> billion in the first quarter, up <>% year-over-year, which is also the slowest growth rate for Amazon's cloud computing business since <>, and the previous quarter increased by <>%.

In terms of net income, first-quarter net income was $32.2022 billion, compared to a net loss of $38.5 billion in the first quarter of <>, while Amazon's pretax valuation loss on its common stock investment in electric vehicle Rivian Automotive was $<> million in the first quarter.

In the long run, Amazon's investments in Rivian are losing money. Amazon had a net loss of $2022.27 billion in 127 and a pre-tax valuation loss of $2021.118 billion on its common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $<>.<> billion on its <> investment.

Rivian shares have continued to decline since January 2022, with the share price down 1.78% from its offering price of $83 so far. However, Amazon is still bullish on electric vehicles and plans to put 8,2030 Rivian electric delivery vans on the road by 10.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, "The retail business continued to reduce the cost of service delivery during the quarter while increasing the speed of product fulfillment. The advertising business continues to see strong growth, largely due to continued investment in machine learning. In addition, the AWS business continues to reduce costs, and we continue to prioritize building long-term customer relationships that both help customers save money and make it easier for them to leverage technologies such as large language models and generative artificial intelligence, as well as using machine learning chips to host large language models and AI code companion CodeWhisperer. ”

Amazon's cost-cutting moves include layoffs due to the "uncertainty and difficulty" of the global economy. Amazon announced the largest layoff in the company's history in early January. Andy Jassy said the layoffs will affect more than 1,18000 employees, primarily in HR, store, experience, and technology (PXT) teams. That's a bigger figure than the 11,1 layoffs reported in November. Amazon has said it was adding employees too quickly during the pandemic.

In March, Amazon announced again that it would lay off 3,9000 employees as part of a previously announced layoff plan. Recently, Amazon began notifying some of its affected employees, including AWS, advertising, human resources, video games, and Twitch live streaming. Since the beginning of this year, Amazon has laid off a total of 27000,29 employees, the largest layoff in Amazon's <>-year history.

In addition, on April 4, Amazon announced the closure of its Halo division, which sells health and sleep trackers, and said that it will stop supporting the Halo service from July 26 and will fully refund Halo devices purchased within the previous 7 months. Amazon launched the original Halo bracelet in 31. With cost-cutting, Amazon continues to invest in areas such as groceries, healthcare, Kuiper internet satellite services, and generative artificial intelligence.

Against an uncertain macro backdrop, global companies are cutting back on spending on cloud and IT infrastructure projects, and cloud computing businesses are more competitive. Although AWS achieved 16% revenue growth last quarter, operating expenses also increased by 36%, resulting in a 21.4% year-over-year decline in AWS revenue last quarter. Microsoft's intelligent cloud division generated revenue of $221.16 billion last quarter, up <>% year-over-year, and has slowed growth for several consecutive quarters. However, the earnings report shows that Google's cloud business is profitable for the first time in three years.

In response to the competition, Amazon has also joined the generative AI race. AWS launched Bedrock on April 4, a service that allows developers to create their own tools using large language models developed by Amazon and other companies. Amazon Bedrock provides easy access to leading base models from AI startups such as AI14 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, as well as exclusive access to the Titan base model family developed by AWS.