After Apple, Amazon became the second US tech company to log its largest quarter by revenue of all time at $125.56 billion, as online shopping broke all records in the holiday quarter (October-December period) amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company doubled its net income to $7.2 billion for the quarter, compared to $3.3 billion for the same period in 2019. Amazon's full-year 2020 net sales were up 38 per cent, to $386.1 billion. Amazon's stock was up 1 per cent in extended trading on Tuesday.
Amazon also announced that Jeff Bezos will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, will become Chief Executive Officer at that time.
"Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime's insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more," said Bezos who founded Amazon in 1994.
"When you look at our financial results, what you're actually seeing are the long-run cumulative results of invention. Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition," he added.
During a call with investors, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company has a "highly effective" succession plan in place.
Amazon's cloud-computing arm AWS saw its revenue jump 28 per cent to $12.7 billion from $9.95 billion a year earlier.
Earlier, riding on the stellar performance of iPhones, wearables and services in the festive December quarter, Apple posted an all-time record revenue of $111.4 billion in its history, up 21 per cent year over year, and quarterly earnings up 35 per cent.