By now, it is no surprise that Amazon would post another Amazing quarter, but the growth/margin in international (+60%) and ads/other (+77%) still raised my eyebrows.
Let’s look at segment by segment and some highlights from the call.
2/ But first here’s the breakdown of revenue by segment (both product and geography)
The real surprise was how international operating margin increased from -2.6% in 1Q’20 to +4.1% in 1Q’21. That’s +670 bps margin improvement vs NA’s +260 bps during the same time.
3/ One of my concerns was whether Amazon can mimic its success in NA to international markets as well.
Looking at the operating leverage and the pace of improvement, this looks much better than I anticipated.
4/ E-commerce (1P+3P)
+64% YoY 3P growth. This beast has no sign of slowdown.
“In the U.S., Same-Day Delivery in as fast as five hours is free on orders over $35 on over three million items in select cities”
5/ “Grocery has been a great revelation during the post-pandemic period here. I think people really value the ability to get home delivery. And we've seen the numbers go up considerably pre and post-pandemic”
Amazon Business: $25 Bn run-rate, ~50% sales from 3P.
6/ Prime
“175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year, and streaming hours are up more than 70% year over year”
Total Prime members now ~200 mn
So every 7 out of 8 Prime members watched video. Video is a great customer acquisition tool for Prime
7/ AWS
no deceleration in topline with increasing margins.
One and half years ago, I remember people were really concerned about AWS margin sustainability with competition from Azure and GCP heating up.
AWS backlog $52.9 Bn, +55% YoY
8/ Every time I look at AWS/Azure/GCP numbers, it reminds me of this:
“for all practical purposes, I believe AWS is market-size unconstrained”.
If you haven’t read Bezos pitch on AWS, these four paragraphs will be a treat for you. Again, this was in Bezos letter in *2014*.
9/ Other
“Hours watched on Twitch nearly doubled year-over-year in the first quarter, and we now average more than 35 million daily visitors.”
~80% other revenue is ads. What’s driving the eye-popping growth? Traffic and relevance of the ads.
10/ Outlook: 2Q’21 topline growth +24%-30% which I thought is incredible given the tough comp of last year.
A big caveat though Prime day this time is in Q2 vs Q4 last year; will be interesting to see Etsy’s guidance next week.
11/ Amazon continues to execute quarter-in-quarter-out. Probably boring by now, but boring is beautiful 😊
Here’s a thread on my favorite Bezos letter (2014):
"Market environment remains weak, with shipments below 2019 levels."
growth opportunities in industrial and automotive
Four revenue scenarios for 2026, with floor being $20 Bn. FYI, $TXN consensus estimates for '26 revenue is $20 Bn.
"I would be extremely disappointed if it ends up at $20 billion. That's not my expectation. That's not the signature I see as we compete for market share today."
I received a couple of DMs asking about "hey, what's going on in Bangladesh"
While I left Bangladesh in 2017, my almost entire family still lives there. So I'm keenly aware of what's going on. I'll briefly cover what happened and the implications.
let's start with the end result. The Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina or SH (who's the Head of State in Bangladesh) fled the country after facing intense protest from Bangladeshi students. Her exact location doesn't seem to be confirmed yet (rumored to be India or EU).
Let's back up a little and give some brief historical context.
SH came to power in 2008. Her father- Mujib was the architect in mobilizing people in Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in 1971. Following independence, Mujib became the first PM of Bangladesh.
closed my $AMZN Jan 2025 $160 calls that I wrote. 43% gain in this trade, but feels like just another lucky trade as I now think AMZN is undervalued (and I was likely too cautious to hedge it at $160 back then). Kept the $55 calls unhedged now.
CSU's organic growth for recurring revenue will probably more or less mimic $BRO's organic growth. But CSU has ~20% ROIC vs BRO's ~10% but they trade at *almost* similar multiple. So I decided to buyback what I trimmed.
Going through insurance brokers earnings now. $AON and $MMC finally growing in tandem after AON lagged MMC consistently since 2Q'21.
$BRO is the clear winner in organic growth for this quarter. (disc: long $BRO and $AON)
Looking closer between MMC and AON.
will add to this thread later as I go through the transcript.
In the meantime, here's my Deep Dive on $BRO (also explains why I love this industry and would like to own probably most of these companies over time at "right" valuation):
After sequential revenue decline in China for 7 consecutive quarters, this quarter experienced ~15-20% growth across all segments in China. Europe and Japan are also in early phase of the upcycle.
More commentary on China:
"the market is more competitive in China, but we can compete and we can win business in very attractive margins"
expect incremental margin to be ~75-85% (ex depreciation)
"Inventory is being built at the right part, where we have this diversity and longevity positions such that we don't risk the scrap of the inventory."