back to article Last year, we joked that Amazon was a cloud giant with a gift shop. Looking at these AWS figures, we were right

Cloud cash-cow and stuff-shifter Amazon on Thursday reported $59.7bn in revenue for its Q1 2019, up 17 per cent from a year ago and about what financial analysts expected. A surprise came in the form of earnings, which hit $7.09 per diluted share (GAAP), representing net income of $3.6bn and about $2bn more than the same …

  1. Platypus

    Also, like most gift shops, this one is full of cheap crap that nobody in their right mind would really buy. Between the fake reviews, counterfeits, and the invasion of the generic drop-shippers, the quality of the shopping experience on Amazon has taken a nose-dive in the last year or two.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Still better than places like NewEgg

    2. Allonymous Coward

      Just this morning I was idly wondering if Amazon would become one of those companies we reminisce about in 20 years, "Remember when they used to do X?".

      Remember when IBM used to make laptops?

      Remember when Amazon wasn't a huge technology services company and used to sell things?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazon has lost its way, it used to have lots of cheap things that you could ship worldwide, but then they started limiting where they would ship, they started collecting taxes for foreign governments (that there was no legal requirement for them to do) and they started moving into more expensive premium brands.

    Lets not even mention they had the worlds first smart speaker, but they failed to capitalise on that, failed to deliver it worldwide for years, and allowed gogoge to beat them to many markets, and for the last year they have been dumbing her down and making her more "chatty" in some stupid attempt to copy google's flawed interface!

    I haven't bought anything from Amazon for 6 months, and I used to buy multiple things every month, and I'm seriously considering throwing my Alexa's in the bin, how idiotic is she now, I ask her for the time and she tells me then says "have a nice day" FFS I only asked you for the time Alexa, not a saga and a cheerio call, same with so many responses now, repeating what you asked her to do, "Alexa, turn on the light" used to just elicit an "ok", now its "ok turning on the light" even though you can SEE her do it, no need to repeat the command "google style" etc etc etc

    1. Teiwaz

      I ask her for the time and she tells me then says "have a nice day" FFS I only asked you for the time Alexa

      Well, you did buy a corporate Parrot..

      Possibly it's intentional. Next will be increasing less than subtle hints that if you make a suitably hefty order, Alexia will shut up for a bit.

      After that, the service will be offered on 'subscription', miss a payment and Alexia starts talking, and the servers have been recording you all this time and know all embarrassing secrets.

    2. Blane Bramble

      You know you can set Alexa to simply beep in response to a command, yes?

  3. BebopWeBop
    Facepalm

    AWS revenues, however, only, yes, only, grew 42 per cent, which is less than the 48 per cent rate it managed in the same quarter last year. That suggests a stall in growth

    Only if you believe that a small chagne in a fairly volatile busines over one year is a stall - It is not a stall - although a slowdown does appear inevitable until or if someone comes up with a better businees proposition.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Repeating the numbers because the percentage value doesn't tell the story:

      Q42018 Q4 2017 Growth

      AWS US$7.3bn US$5.0bn US$2.3bn

      Azure US$3.7bn US$2.1bn US$1.6bn

      So AWS growth may be slowing while Azure growth is accelerating but on like-for-like growth, AWS is still growing almost 50% faster than Azure.

  4. TrumpSlurp the Troll

    Two day delivery?

    Amazon Prime is supposed to be next day, which I take to be one day delivery.

    Although there are more and more Prime items which take several days to deliver.

    1. Blane Bramble

      Re: Two day delivery?

      It's two days in the USA I believe - it's quite a big place.

    2. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: Two day delivery?

      From my experience of Amazon prime in the UK the delivery times appear to be just dates they put on the listing and bear no resemblance to when you will actually receive your order. Several times I have chosen a nominated delivery date rather than one day delivery as I knew I wasn't going to be at home to receive the parcel, yet they have tried to delivery next day anyway so completely ignoring my requested delivery date.

      1. Warm Braw

        Re: Two day delivery?

        I try to use the Amazon Locker service to avoid the unpredictable delivery problem but Amazon have started claiming the lockers are "full" for smaller items, even if they'll go in the same box as a larger item you're buying at the same time for which the locker is strangely available. I presume this is because they either come from different warehouses and it's cheaper to post the items than transport them to combine the orders in one box or a clumsy attempt to reduce pressure on the lockers at busy times. It's not unusual, when a locker delivery is actually possible, for the order to be delivered a few minutes before access to the lockers closes for the night. You have no idea how a home delivery will arrive - it's fine if it's Royal Mail as I know when the postman comes and I can collect from the depot if I miss him, but Amazon "logistics" turn up at any time and keep coming back at unpredictable times with no depot to collect from.

        I find I'm ordering more direct from suppliers' websites and from eBay because I have more control over the delivery process.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Two day delivery?

          "but Amazon have started claiming the lockers are "full" for smaller items"

          It seems to be more complex than that. They won't deliver some sorts of products - for unclear and probably inconsistent reasons - to lockers. There may be a small print notice to this effect on the product listing but again I'm not sure it's consistent. But instead of telling you this explicitly when you try to assign it to a locker you get the "full" garbage.

          Amazon seems to have become a distinctly curate's egg business.

          Their store S/W is full of the above type of junk.

          - Search was bad and has got worse. Results are padded with stuff that doesn't get anywhere near to matching search terms.

          - I've seen tracking that showed a non-delivered product go into a warehouse and no further, there seems to have been no warning that something was wrong when it didn't get picked for despatch.

          - I've had stuff shown as out for delivery to locker and then, for whatever reason, failed to be delivered. At that point they then fail to realise they need to despatch another PDQ or even realise that something;s wrong. When queried they'll tell you what they're doing to try to find the original. I've even had them report that it was found in a warehouse in another country. And they take the non-delivery as a return authorisation because that's the only way they can order a replacement so a courier then turns up to collect the undelivered item.

          - The repeated attempts to flog Prime are beyond annoying.

          Frankly I don't even care whether they use Oracle or their own database engine. I just wish the management of their logistics S/W was handed to somebody prepared to say "I don't care if it's running the biggest sales operation on the planet it's still not good enough.". Or maybe their logistics management would take that attitude and demand better.

          OTOH I've found their Basics stuff to be OK. E.g. once well-respected British electrical goods company sold to asset-stripper who treat it simply as a brand; electric hot water jug has short-lived spring in the lid latch which fails in months. Like the asset stripper Amazon presumably get their equivalent made by some Chinese factory nobody in the West has heard of but theirs just works and keeps on just working.

    3. SWCD

      Re: Two day delivery?

      You're probably right, although can't say I've noticed on enough items - and I'd still use Prime for other reasons. But, other stuff that makes up for it.. Prime Now.. Great! Half day at work so started the alcohol a bit early.. At the point where I've had too much to drive and get more, but don't have enough in the house to continue the rest of the night...

      So, Prime Now.. I can have someone here in 56 minutes if I pay £6.99 (overall price, still only a couple of quid more than my local Co-op).. Or if I'm happy waiting until 8pm I'll not pay anything extra.

      And I can get some other shopping brought at the same time.

      Whatever you say about them, you have to stand in awe of the machine they are.. Both the systems behind the scenes managing all that, and them having the labour on hand to get things to you.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Two day delivery?

        "you have to stand in awe of the machine they are.. Both the systems behind the scenes managing all that"

        Yes, the systems are awful - see my comment above.

  5. Aseries

    HO HUM

    From the tone of comments AMAZON's rep is suffering from a case of "what have you done for me lately".

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: HO HUM

      And why not? That's basically what the reputation of any trading company should be based on. It makes no difference whether they were better of worse in the more distant past and you can't base it on what they'll be like in the future because your only sound predictor of that is what they've done recently.

  6. IGnatius T Foobar !

    Amazon is the new Microsoft

    Amazon is the new Microsoft: too big, too much of an existential threat to the rest of the industry, and should be forcibly broken up.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Amazon is the new Microsoft

      I was going to say similar. You were more succinct. Thank you :)

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Amazon is the new Microsoft

      "should be forcibly broken up."

      Not as easy as it sounds. You could split off the stuff-selling and bit-barn business from each other and still have two businesses which remain a threat to the rest of their respective industries. You'd need to split those two businesses up so that at least they represented competition to each other.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Amazon is the new Microsoft

        And then what's to stop them borging back together by hook or crook the way AT&T did, even to the point of bribing key pieces of government to get the laws changed?

  7. BananaPeal

    Amazon rocks

    You yolks whine no about getting stuff on different days need to remember that without amazon forcing the 2 day shipping onto the world the other companies wouldn’t have had to keep up, so shoprunner and other 2day schemes that exist do so because amazon forced them to. Also many authorized sellers of electronics do business through amazon so I’m not seeing the cheap crap you folks complain about. I suppose it’s down to what you’re shopping for and your budget. I dare say amazon delivery drivers even out perform their fedex equivalents by being flexible and offering photo confirmation of the delivery spot.

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