All eyes were on Amazon this week as it announced its latest quarterly earnings report. As usual, there’s a lot to unpack. Here’s our take on the latest earnings report, and what it means for advertisers.
In Q4 2022, net sales were up by 9% YoY on a guidance of 2 to 8%, with North America leading the way at 14% growth, while international sales declined by 8% YoY.
Advertising revenue falls short of $40 billion
Advertising revenue reached $11.6 billion in Q4, which brings 2022 ad revenue to $37.8 billion for the year, falling just short of $40 billion.
Despite hitting double-digit revenue last quarter, advertising also experienced a slower growth rate of 23%. It’s likely that growth was affected by macroeconomic conditions and inventory challenges over the past year.
Ad revenue grew by 21% in 2022, significantly less than the year prior when Advertising revenue grew by 45%, again evidence that even Amazon is not immune to the challenging economic environment.
3P Seller Services Takes the Lead On Growth
Advertising was dethroned as the highest growing segment in Amazon’s business last quarter, with 3P Seller Services taking the lead with a narrow margin. This is likely driven by Amazon’s fee hikes. Also of note, AWS growth rate continued to decline, marking the fourth consecutive quarter with declining growth rates.
Modest Net Sales Guidance For Next Quarter
Amazon beat guidance on net sales for Q4 but the guidance for next quarter remains modest at 4–8%. We continue to see modest guidance from Amazon, particularly compared to their historical guidance.
Summary
Amazon advertising continues to grow, but at a slower rate. We believe future advertising growth will need to come from off-Amazon advertising and reaching new non-endemic advertisers. We see Amazon continue to invest in new solutions, like Amazon Marketing Cloud, hoping to attract advertisers with unique offerings that compete with more traditional online media giants, such as Google and Meta.
In addition to new advertising offerings available to non-endemic customers, Buy with Prime is a major initiative to watch from Amazon in 2023. If you want to read more about Amazon’s current mindset, check out this candid interview with Andy Jassy on GeekWire.
