The Leadership Letter

Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.

How Margin Expansion and New S-Curves Compound Together

When your core business gets cheaper to run, every new bet you place gets cheaper to fund.

Last year at this time, I shared my enthusiasm and optimism for Amazon's future. Today, I have even more. The reasons are many, but start with the progress we've made in our financial results and customer experiences, and extend to our continued innovation and the remarkable opportunities in front of us. In 2023, Amazon's total revenue grew 12% year-over-year from $514B to $575B. Operating income in 2023 improved 201% YoY from $12.2B (an operating margin of 2.4%) to $36.9B (an operating margin of 6.4%). Trailing Twelve Month Free Cash Flow adjusted for equipment finance leases improved from -$12.8B in 2022 to $35.5B (up $48.3B). While we've made meaningful progress on our financial measures, what we're most pleased about is the continued customer experience improvements across our businesses. In 2023, Amazon delivered at the fastest speeds ever to Prime members, with more than 7 billion items arriving same or next day. For the first time since 2018, we reduced our cost to serve on a per unit basis globally. In the U.S. alone, cost to serve was down by more than $0.45 per unit YoY. Amazon's Advertising progress remains strong, growing 24% YoY from $38B in 2022 to $47B in 2023. In Generative AI, we invented and delivered Amazon Bedrock, letting companies leverage existing Foundation Models to build GenAI applications, and launched Amazon Q, our most capable coding assistant. We have increasing conviction that Prime Video can be a large and profitable business on its own, buoyed by compelling exclusive content and the addition of advertising reaching over 200 million monthly viewers.

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SEC EDGAR Filing
SEC EDGAR · EX-99.1
AMAZON COM INC · EX-99.1 · filed 2024-04-11 · Accession 0001104659-24-045915
April 11, 2024
Public domain
View the primary source →