Amazon has revealed rising sales in its second quarter, but profits dropped significantly amid its whirlwind expansion efforts.
Year-on-year sales rose 25 per cent in its second quarter to £29 billion, up from £23.2 billion in 2016.
Despite this, profits dived 51 per cent year-on-year, alongside a significant net income drop from £656 million to £150 million.
Chief executive Jeff Bezos, who briefly overtook Microsoft‘s Bill Gates to be the richest man in the world amid anticipation of today‘s results, hailed the success of Amazon‘s growing hardware offering as a driver of sales.
READ MORE: Amazon announces 450 new UK head office jobs
“Our teams remain heads-down and focused on customers,” Bezos said.
“In the last few months, we launched Echo Show – our newest Echo device with a video screen – introduced calling and messaging via Alexa on all Echo devices, launched four new Fire tablets, and held our third annual Prime Day – signing up more Prime members than ever before.
“It’s energising to invent on behalf of customers, and we continue to see many high-quality opportunities to invest.”
In conjuction with today’s results, Amazon released a video detailing its investment and expansion in the UK:
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