[Reuters] --- Amazon.com announced on the 2nd that Jeff Bezos, CEO, will retire as chairman in the third quarter of this year. At the same time, the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2020 reached a record high for the third consecutive quarter, and sales exceeded $ 100 billion for the first time in the quarter.
The successor CEO will be Andy Jassy, the head of the cloud service "Amazon Web Services (AWS)".
Mr. Bezos, who founded Amazon 27 years ago, said in a memo to employees, "I will continue to be involved in important Amazon initiatives as chairman," and said that it is a charity fund and space development venture Blue Origin. "I want to leave time and energy for other passions," said the Washington Post. "This is not retirement," he stressed.
Fourth-quarter net sales were $ 125.56 billion, surpassing Refinitiv analysts' expectations of $ 119.7 billion.
The Prime Day sale, which is held in July every year, was delayed to October, which contributed to the sales of the year-end sales season.
The net sales forecast for the first quarter of 2009 is 100 billion to 106 billion dollars.
Stock prices rose a little less than 1% in post-closing transactions.
According to the Amazon website, Mr. Jasie joined the company in 1997. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School. Launched AWS and grown it into a widely used cloud platform.
Amazon has announced that it will not announce his replacement at this time.
Tom Johnson, Chief Transformation Officer at Mindshare Worldwide, said Jasie's promotion highlights the importance of web services in Amazon's future.
"The career of Mr. Jassie, who has led AWS, shows how these services are ranked high in Amazon's business strategy," he said, balancing the impact on the strategy and the growth of the advertising and mail-order business. He said he would keep an eye on how to take it.
Mr. Jasie is also known for his technical knowledge, and under his command, AWS has acquired large customers such as Verizon, McDonald's, and Honeywell. The division's quarterly sales have shown stable double-digit growth, solidifying its position as a leader in the cloud market.
AWS fourth-quarter sales were $ 12.7 billion, slightly below the expected $ 12.8 billion.
Since the spread of the new coronavirus infection in the United States, the company's online shopping business has expanded to an unprecedented scale as more consumers buy daily necessities and medicines on Amazon. While physical stores are closing down, Amazon has added more than 400,000 people to meet demand.
However, with more than 19,000 employees infected with the new corona by September last year, some are protesting and moving toward forming a labor union.
Brian Olsabski, Chief Financial Officer, said in a telephone interview that costs associated with the new Corona would drop from $ 4 billion in the previous quarter to $ 2 billion in the first quarter of 2009 due to lower product purchases. Showed the outlook.
* Information has been added / updated