Amazon reported $143.3 billion in Q1 revenue, a 13 percent increase year-over-year, excluding the impact from foreign exchange rates, with net income at just over $10.3 billion, a nearly 229 percent surge that set a first quarter record for the company. Both categories outperformed Wall Street expectations, with strong online sales and a booming cloud business thanks to the increased demands of artificial intelligence deployment by enterprise clients credited as driving the boom. Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy called it “a good start to the year.”

Jassy “has significantly reoriented the company to focus on AI innovations since falling behind Microsoft, Google and other peers in the space,” writes The Wall Street Journal, citing the executive’s vision of focusing on generative AI as “a critical building block in establishing Amazon’s next pillar of growth following its online retail Marketplace, Amazon Prime and its cloud-computing unit, Amazon Web Services.”

AWS sales grew more than 17 percent in the first quarter, to roughly $25 billion, with operating profit up nearly 84 percent, the company shared in its Q1 news release.

“AWS sales had decelerated last year, after years of rapid expansion,” according to WSJ, which quotes Synovus Trust Senior Analyst and Portfolio Manager Daniel Morgan saying the turnaround “puts Amazon on par with Alphabet and Microsoft in regards to reinvigorated growth back into the data center.”

The New York Times points out that 2024 marks the first time Amazon is “on track to have $100 billion in annual cloud computing sales,” and says the company “continued to wring efficiencies out of its retail business,” with about $54.6 billion in Q1 online store sales (+7 percent), $5.4 billion from physical stores (+6 percent), and $34.6 billion generated from third-party online sales (i.e., commissions, shipping).

Advertising services grew 24 percent for the quarter, to $11.8 billion, while subscription services tallied $10.7 billion, up 11 percent.

“What analysts consider the most profitable parts of Amazon’s retail business have been growing the fastest. This includes advertising,” NYT reports, explaining that “in January, Amazon began putting ads into video streaming for Prime members, unless the customers paid an additional $2.99 per month to opt out.”

“Earlier this year, Amazon said it was launching an AI-powered shopping assistant named Rufus on its mobile app,” notes WSJ, adding that “executives said it is designed to improve the shopping experience and enhance the search bar.”