General Bezos Amazon CEO resigns… Quarterly sales exceeded 100 billion yen

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, announced on the 2nd (local time) that he would withdraw from the position of CEO in the third quarter of this year. Bezos announced that Andy Jaeshi, now CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will be appointed as the successor. In the future, Bezos will serve as Executive Chair.

Bezos said Amazon is stepping down as CEO because it is in its most innovative period.

“Amazon exists because of innovation. We did crazy things together and turned it into a normal thing. We have customer reviews, one-click service, personalized product recommendations, prime super-speed delivery, and just walk out shopping. shopping), climate pledge, Kindle, Alexa, infrastructure cloud computing, and many more.” Bezos said in a letter to his employees:

“After years of amazing innovation, what’s new becomes commonplace, people yawn. That yawn is the greatest compliment an innovator can enjoy. The innovation we’ve accumulated over the years through Amazon’s financial performance,” he said. You can see the results. Amazon is the most innovative time now. I think now is the right time for a CEO change.”

The outcome of the innovation was amazing. On that day, Amazon announced that it achieved record-high performance in the fourth quarter of last year. The background is that online shopping has exploded as the Corona 19 re-proliferation and the year-end shopping season overlap. This is the first time that quarterly sales have exceeded $100 billion.

In the fourth quarter of last year, the company announced that its sales increased by 44% compared to the same period of the previous year to $125.6 billion. Operating profit was $6.9 billion, up 77% year-on-year. The operating margin was 5.5%. Net profit reached $7.2 billion, an increase of 118% compared to the same period last year.

Earnings per share was $14.09. This figure far exceeds the Wall Street sales estimate ($119.7 billion) and earnings per share ($7.23).

Based on these fourth quarter results, Amazon recorded a record growth last year. Last year’s annual sales increased 38% year-on-year to $386.1 billion. Operating profit was $22.9 billion, an increase of 58% from the previous year. Net profit recorded 21.3 billion dollars, an increase of 84% from the previous year.

Amazon said its sales in the first quarter of this year will be between $100 billion and 10 billion dollars, slowing from the fourth quarter of last year, but will increase by 33-40% compared to the same period last year. Analysts are expecting revenues of $95.8 billion.

Amazon’s’blockbuster performance’ in the fourth quarter was thanks to the’record-breaking year-end season’, which delivered more than 1 billion products to shoppers around the world last year. Corona 19 re-proliferation has boosted demand for e-commerce.

Amazon’s Cloud Computing division grew 28% in sales outside of its core retail business, from $9.95 billion a year earlier to $12.7 billion. This slightly fell short of Wall Street’s expectations ($12.83 billion). As customers ordered groceries online due to Corona 19, sales at Amazon offline stores such as Whole Food Markets decreased by 8%.

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994. It turned Amazon, once an online bookstore, into a huge global retailer of all kinds of devices, groceries and streaming services. Under the leadership of Bezos, Amazon surpassed $1 trillion in market cap last January. Today, Amazon is worth over $1.6 trillion.

Jaeshi joined Amazon in 1997. From the initial stage, he led Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is currently an important source of income for Amazon. “Jassie is already well known within the company, and has been at Amazon as long as I am. He will be a great leader, and he has full trust in me,” Bezos said.

Bezos is not completely retiring from business. As chairman of the board, he said he plans to devote energy to securing new products and initial initiatives. Amazon’s Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky explained that Bezos will continue to be closely involved with Amazon.

Bezos is expected to pursue other innovations in areas other than e-commerce through the’Day 1 Fund’,’Bazos Earth Fund’, the private aerospace company’Blue Origin’, and the media outlet’Washington Post’. Bezos told his staff:

“As I’m still dancing in the office, I’m very excited about this transition. Millions of customers use our services, and over a million employees rely on us for a living. Becoming the CEO of Amazon is very exciting. “There is a great responsibility that comes with it. When you have that responsibility, it’s hard to pay attention to other things.”

Reporter Jaeyeon Ko [email protected]