Amazon’s Big Quarter: The Information’s Tech Briefing

Any attempts by Jeff Bezos in yesterday’s antitrust hearing to cast Amazon as a minor player in the global retail market quickly got overshadowed by Amazon’s superlative-laden second-quarter results. Sales surged 40% to $89 billion, net income doubled to $5.2 billion and the number of its employees hit one million, it told shareholders Thursday. 

Amazon’s results surprised even its own predictions that it would eat up all its operating profit in the quarter by spending more on safety and other measures for front-line workers—it did spend $4 billion on such costs including special bonuses, but it made $5.8 billion in operating profit. (Amazon declined to say whether it would reinstate those pay increases.)

The company has tried to avoid looking like it was profiting from the pandemic, particularly as antitrust investigations loom. Early on in the shutdowns, when global supply chains froze and Prime delivery times slowed, it wasn’t clear it would. Yet Thursday’s results show Amazon has not only become a more powerful contender during the pandemic, but has easily absorbed the costs to get it there. —Laura Mandaro