Amazon Has A Big Problem

For investors, Amazon’s first-quarter results in April were a shocker. The firm declared its first quarterly loss in seven years. Its first-quarter revenue growth, at just seven per cent, was its poorest for that period in about two decades.

Amazon’s revenues actually dropped three per cent in its core online businesses, including its flagship online general store. And revenue growth slowed in its subscription businesses, including Prime Video.

Amazon’s shares have plummeted in value by more than 40 per cent since Jassy became CEO. That’s a loss of more than $770 billion in shareholder value on Jassy’s watch.

An Amazon that has known only relentless growth in its 28 years must now shrink. But Jassy is a builder who turned Amazon’s cloud-computing service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), into the world’s largest provider before taking on his current job.