Amazon exceeds expectations with quarterly report

The cloud division is the most important profit driver of the e-commerce group. Also: Dropbox, Clubhouse and Lyft cut jobs and Meta wins an antitrust lawsuit.

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Amazon has exceeded the expectations of investors with its quarterly figures: Sales rose in the first quarter by 9.4 percent to 127.4 billion US dollars, as the world’s largest online retailer announced on Thursday. Operating profit was $4.8 billion, an increase of 30 percent – the analysts had expected an average of $3 billion. Cost cuts and surprisingly strong sales in its cloud division helped Amazon weather the tough economy. In the meantime, the shares rose by up to twelve percent, but then lost the gains again.

The e-commerce giant has been working on streamlining its businesses for more than a year to adapt to slowing sales growth in online retail and its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. The company is cutting a total of 27,000 jobs as part of the restructuring – the largest wave of layoffs in its history. The latest round of layoffs, which was announced on Wednesday, primarily affects the employees of the cloud unit AWS. Several projects have been shelved, including a telehealth program and a line of fitness wearables. The company has also slowed new warehouse expansion and paused construction of its second headquarters in Virginia. [Mehr bei Bloomberg, CNBC, CNBC, Handelsblatt und Wall Street Journal]

On Founder Scene: With a valuation of around two billion euros, the Berlin logistics service provider Sennder one of the most valuable German startups. The company has grown rapidly since it was founded by Nicolaus Schefenacker, Julius Köhler and David Nothacker in 2015. Among the former employees there are now also some founders who have set up their own companies – for example these five. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

Quarterly Figures: At Intel the quarterly report looked less rosy. The chipmaker reported a nearly 36 percent drop in sales to $11.7 billion. The quarterly loss of $2.8 billion is the largest loss in the company’s history. Also Snap disappointed with its business figures: The turnover of the Snapchat parent company fell in the first quarter by seven percent to 989 million dollars. It’s a sign that the company has been hit harder than its competitors by the sluggish digital advertising market and privacy changes on Apple’s iPhone Meta. Snap shares fell about 20 percent in after-hours trading. [Mehr bei CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg und Techcrunch]

redundancies: The cloud storage service Dropbox announced it would cut 500 jobs, about 16 percent of its workforce, in light of slowing growth and an industry-wide push toward artificial intelligence. Also Clubhouse, the social media sensation of the Corona pandemic, is laying off more than half of its employees. According to the Bloomberg agency, the company employed around 100 people in the third quarter of last year. The car service provider Lyft wants to cut 26 percent of the more than 4,000 jobs after 700 employees were laid off in November. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg und CNBC]

Meta has won a major antitrust lawsuit in the United States. Dozens of attorneys general had accused Meta of taking over the photo app Instagram in 2012 and from Whatsapp to monopolize the social networking market in 2014. A US appeals court has now declared that it will not resume the antitrust proceedings. [Mehr bei Bloomberg und Techcrunch]

The FBI got hold of the former’s home Thursday morning FTXManager Ryan Salame searched. It wasn’t immediately clear what the officers were looking for. Salame ran the crypto exchange’s Bahamian subsidiary prior to its collapse and was part of founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s close advisory circle. He has to answer in court for fraud. Salame came under increased scrutiny for his $24 million in campaign contributions during last year’s US midterm elections. [Mehr bei Bloomberg und New York Times]

The crypto exchange Coinbase has reiterated in a formal response to a threat from the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it has not broken any securities laws. “Coinbase does not trade securities,” reads the company’s response. The SEC had accused Coinbase of offering and selling unregistered securities in violation of federal law. [Mehr bei CNBC und Reuters]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: Around four percent of the 1700 employees of N26 lose their job. They are to receive “comprehensive severance packages”. The fintech wants to be in the black by 2024. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Friday!

Your Gründerszene editors