Amazon clocks in over $10 billion in online ad revenue in the last quarter

The second quarter of 2023 saw the company’s ad business grow by 22 percent from the past year. Total revenue also grew to $134.4 billion.

Online retail giant Amazon's global advertising business brought in $10.68 billion in sales in the second quarter of 2023, the company informed while reporting its financial results. Compared to the second quarter of 2022, this marks a 22% increase.

According to an Insider Intelligence report, Amazon holds a share of 7.3% in the global digital ad market. 

About the growth in ad revenues, Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon, said in a statement, "We’re also continuing to see strong demand for our advertising services as the team keeps innovating for brands, including the ramp up for Thursday Night Football (branding used for broadcasts of National Football League in USA) with the ability for advertisers to tailor their spots by audience and create interactive experiences for consumers. We remain excited about what lies ahead for customers and the company.”

The company also reported that it partnered with Pinterest in the past quarter to display ads on its website for products sold in Amazon’s store. “As Pinterest’s first partner for third-party ads, Amazon will make it easier for customers to discover and buy relevant products on Amazon and provide value for brands and advertisers,” the company informed.

The past quarter also saw Amazon introduce new machine learning models to help advertisers reach audiences with Amazon Ads. The company asserts that the new machine learning models analyses a range of signals to help advertisers predict and reach relevant audiences with cost-efficiency.

The overall net sales for the company, or its total revenue, increased by 11% year over year to $134.4 billion in the last quarter. The company's net sales stood at $121.2 billion in the second quarter of 2022. Amazon reported a net income of $6.7 billion in the last quarter. The company incurred a net loss of $2 billion in the second quarter last year. 

AWS segment sales increased 12% YoY to $22.1 billion. However, the segment's operating income was $5.4 billion, compared with operating income of $5.7 billion in second quarter 2022.

Operating cash flow increased 74% to $61.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $35.6 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2022.

For the third quarter, Amazon expects sales of between $138 billion and $143 billion, or growth of between 9% and 13%.

“It was another strong quarter of progress for Amazon,” Jassy said. “We continued lowering our cost to serve in our fulfillment network, while also providing Prime customers with the fastest delivery speeds we’ve ever recorded. Our AWS growth stabilized as customers started shifting from cost optimization to new workload deployment, and AWS has continued to add to its meaningful leadership position in the cloud with a slew of generative AI releases."