For the first time in almost a decade, online retail platform Amazon reported a net loss of *** billion U.S. dollars in 2022. After that, in the fiscal year ending December 31st 2024, the net income amounted to **** billion U.S. dollars. Amazon Web Services Amazon does not rely on retailing alone to generate profits. Its cloud business, AWS, is the one segment raking in steady profits with a **** billion U.S. dollar operating income in the most recently reported year. The annual revenue of the business segment came to **** billion U.S. dollars in 2023. As of the fourth quarter 2023, Amazon Web Services accounted for ** percent of the global cloud infrastructure service market. Amazon’s other businessesDue to the company’s financial resources, Amazon has the capability to invest in new products and markets, such as online and offline grocery sales. In June 2017, Amazon purchased grocery retailer Whole Foods Market for **** billion U.S. dollars, the company’s most expensive acquisition by far. This acquisition was primarily a move to expand the company's online grocery business, one of the fastest growing online shopping trends in the United States.

Amazon revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2025 was $650.313B, a 10.08% increase year-over-year. Amazon annual revenue for 2024 was $637.959B, a 10.99% increase from 2023. Amazon annual revenue for 2023 was $574.785B, a 11.83% increase from 2022. Amazon annual revenue for 2022 was $513.983B, a 9.4% increase from 2021.

Amazon net income for the twelve months ending March 31, 2025 was $65.944B, a 74.99% increase year-over-year. Amazon annual net income for 2024 was $59.248B, a 94.73% increase from 2023. Amazon annual net income for 2023 was $30.425B, a 1217.74% decline from 2022. Amazon annual net income for 2022 was $-2.722B, a 108.16% decline from 2021.

The combined number of full- and part-time employees of Amazon.com has increased significantly since 2017. Amazon’s headcount peaked in 2021 when the American multinational e-commerce company employed ********* full- and part-time employees, not counting external contractors. However, in 2024, the number dropped to *********. E-commerce crunch The workforce reduction of Amazon follows the mass layoffs hitting the entire e-commerce sector. With the full reopening of physical stores after the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping demand decreased, leading online retailers to restructure their businesses, including personnel costs. Diversifying business With online retail sales growing slower due to recession and inflation, Amazon can still leverage other profitable revenue segments — from media subscriptions to server hosting and cloud services. On top of that, in 2023 Amazon monitored small enterprises operating in different fields and strategically invested in them, as disclosed startup acquisitions indicate.

Flipkart Private Limited reported a loss of nearly 24 billion Indian rupees in the financial year 2024 in India, compared to a loss of around 49 billion Indian rupees in the previous financial year. In 2018, American retail giant Walmart acquired the home-grown online retailer for 16 billion U.S. dollars, became a 77 percent-stakeholder.

As of January 2024, the tech startup with the most layoffs was Amazon, with over 27 thousand layoffs, across five separate rounds of layoffs. It was followed by Meta and Google with around 21 thousand and 12 thousand job cuts announced respectively.

Layoffs in in the technology industry

Overall, layoffs across all industries began in 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with tech layoffs increasing in 2022. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, more than 167 thousand employees had been fired worldwide, a record number of job cuts in a single quarter and more than all of the layoffs announced in 2022 combined, marking a harsh start to of 2023 for the tech sector. From retail to finance and education, all sectors are suffering from this widespread downsizing. However, retail tech startups were hit the most, with almost 29 thousand layoffs announced as of September 2023. Most job losses happened in the United States, where tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google are based.

Reasons behind increasing tech layoffs

Layoffs in the technology sector started with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when entire cities were in lockdown and mobility was restricted. Although restrictions loosened up in 2021, events such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the downturn in Chinese production, and rising inflation had a significant impact on the tech industry and continue to represent major concerns for tech companies. As a consequence, companies across the world have yet to overcome all economic challenges, examples of which are rising material and labor costs, as well as decreasing profit margins. To address such difficulties, tech companies have appointed business plans. For instance, in the United States, tech firms planned to focus more on consumer retention, automating software, and cutting operating expenses.