“Highly unusual quarter” for Amazon

It was a “highly unusual quarter” for Amazon in the words of founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, as the global online retailer announced its financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2020.

During the quarter, Amazon’s operating cash flow increased 42% to $51.2 billion for the trailing 12 months, compared to $36 billion for the same period ended June 30, 2019. During the quarter, the online retailer’s net sales increased 40% to $88.9 billion, compared to $63.4 billion during the second quarter of 2019.

Commenting on why it was a “highly unusual quarter” for Amazon, Bezos said, “This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn’t be prouder of and grateful to our employees around the globe. As expected, we spent over $4 billion on incremental COVID-19-related costs in the quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers in this time of high demand – purchasing personal protective equipment, increasing cleaning of our facilities, following new safety process paths, adding new backup family care benefits and paying a special thank you bonus of over $500 million to front-line employees and delivery partners.”

“We’ve created over 175,000 new jobs since March and are in the process of bringing 125,000 of these employees into regular, full-time positions. And third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than Amazon’s first-party sales. Lastly, even in this unpredictable time, we injected significant money into the economy this quarter, investing over $9 billion in capital projects, including fulfillment, transportation and AWS,” he added.

Further, Amazon has increased grocery delivery capacity in the US by over 160% and tripled grocery pickup locations to support customers during COVID-19. Online grocery sales tripled in the second quarter when compared with the same period last year.

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