Amazon's Jungle Survival Guide: Navigating Trump's Tariff Terrain!

Earning the Hard Way

Right listen up! The Amazonian rainforest is proving a little trickier than usual. We've got a better than expected Q1 but the guidance ahead looks like a dodgy water source – potentially contaminated! Earnings per share beat the odds at $1.59 against a $1.36 forecast. Revenue also scraped through at $155.67 billion just ahead of the $155.04 billion expected. Remember improvise adapt overcome!

Cloudy with a Chance of Disappointment

Now the Amazon Web Services that's our techy high ground came in at $29.3 billion a hair's breadth below the $29.42 billion expected. Looks like the clouds are shifting and not in our favor. AWS has been the steady fire that keeps us warm at night but even that can be affected. We need to keep that fire burning people! As for advertising we are still tracking at $13.92 billion versus $13.74 billion expected. Good job team good job.

Tariff ied! Surviving Trump's Economic Minefield

The big beast in the jungle this quarter is tariffs thanks to the Trump administration. Amazon expects next quarter’s operating income to be between $13 billion and $17.5 billion shy of the $17.64 billion consensus forecast. Sales are projected to grow 7% to 11% with analysts eyeing $160.9 billion. Tariffs trade policies and recessionary fears are the unpredictable predators lurking in the undergrowth. One minute they are there one minute they are not. You just have to be ready for it.

The Amazonian Price Wars

We face a 145% levy on some products from China and many sellers are reliant on the world's second largest economy. Some of these guys are already hiking prices and cutting ad spend. We even had a White House dust up over showing shoppers the cost of tariffs. I've drunk worse than this. Remember if you can’t avoid it enjoy it!

Jassy's Jungle Wisdom

Andy Jassy CEO of Amazon the big kahuna reckons that the diversity of Amazon's third party sellers means not all will pass on those tariffs. He even suggested Amazon might emerge stronger pointing to how we navigated the Covid pandemic. But he did admit that tariffs are making it harder to predict impact! 'It's hard to tell what's going to happen with tariffs right now,' he said. Truer words mate. Truer words.

Advertising: The Fire in the Dark

Our net income came in strong at $17.13 billion or $1.59 per share. Advertising revenue soared 19% year over year to $13.92 billion. That's our fire in the dark folks! While others are tightening their belts we're still pushing forward. So keep your wits about you stay resourceful and never give up. And remember if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space!