The rate of growth at Amazon 's (US:AMZN) web services division may be slowing from nosebleed levels, but first-quarter cloud computing revenue still chalked up a hefty 43 per cent increase year on year. Reassuringly, operating income stepped up at a higher rate - by 47 per cent to $890m (£689m) - although Amazon Web Services now faces stiff competition in infrastructure cloud services from the likes of IBM, Google, Salesforce and Microsoft, whose Azure platform is growing at a clip.
However, headlines were reserved for the wider sales growth for the lower-margin retail divisions. Despite market concerns that Amazon cannot maintain its rate of expansion, North American sales increased by 24 per cent to $21.0bn, while an international division buttressed by progress in India resulted in a 16 per cent rise in the top line to $11.1bn.
Overall sales would have been higher were it not for the negative foreign exchange impact flagged in February, although the $492m hit was lower than the $730m initially feared. Amazon also absorbed the unfavourable currency movements, which only knocked $31m off operating income in the period. According to Bloomberg, average market consensus is for adjusted earnings per share of $12.63 this year, rising to $18.32 in 2018.
