Amazon (AMZN) Q2 earnings report 2023

Amazon said second-quarter revenue climbed 11%, and the company issued a forecast showing potential growth acceleration in the current period. The stock rose more than 7% in extended trading.

• Earnings: 65 cents a share vs. 35 cents per share expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv
• Revenue: $134.4 billion vs. $131.5 billion expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv

Wall Street is also watching other key numbers in the report:

• Amazon Web Services: $22.1 billion vs. $21.8 billion in revenue, according to StreetAccount
• Advertising: $10.7 billion vs. $10.4 billion in revenue, according to StreetAccount

For the third quarter, Amazon expects sales of between $138 billion and $143 billion, or growth of between 9% and 13%. Analysts were expecting revenue of $138.25 billion, according to Refinitiv.

Amazon has returned to double-digit growth after expansion was mired in the single digits for five of the past six quarters. CEO Andy Jassy attributed some of the improvement to AWS, which had previously been seeing clients slow their spending due to economic uncertainty.

“Our AWS growth stabilized as customers started shifting from cost optimization to new workload deployment,” Jassy said in a statement.

Sales in Amazon’s cloud unit climbed 12% in the second quarter to $22.1 billion, above the $21.8 billion projected by Wall Street. Still, that marks a deceleration from the prior quarter, when sales expanded 16%.

The company reported net income of $6.7 billion, or 65 cents a share, after recording a loss of $2 billion, or 20 cents a share, a year earlier. The year-ago loss was the result of a markdown on the company’s investment in electric vehicle company Rivian.

Amazon’s report, along with Apple‘s on Thursday, wraps up earnings season among the mega-cap tech companies.

While growth remains below historical standards for most of the group, results are starting to rebound after a tough 2022, and cost-cutting measures are bolstering profitability. Also, everyone is focused on artificial intelligence.

In its earnings release, Amazon said AI products from AWS are being used by numerous customers, and it named Royal Philips, 3M, Old Mutual and HSBC.