By Sebastian Herrera 

Amazon.com Inc. said sales and profits soared in the second quarter as shoppers inundated the company's site with orders and employees working from home around the world powered growth in its cloud-computing unit.

Revenue grew 40% to $88.9 billion for the quarter ending June 30, propelled by a flood of customers who have relied on online shopping more than ever during the pandemic. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected sales of $81.4 billion.

Profits doubled to a record $5.2 billion even as Amazon spent more than $4 billion on coronavirus-related costs, hiring hundreds of thousands of workers, increasing pay and taking dozens of steps to ensure warehouse safety after facing early criticism from some employees. Amazon's workforce now exceeds 1 million people and it is the second-largest employer in the U.S.

Amazon has emerged as one of a handful of companies that have seen sales increase during the pandemic, which has ravaged U.S. markets. Like retail giants such as Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc., customers have flocked to Amazon for essential goods even as the company struggled to keep up with demand in the early days of the viral outbreak.

The Seattle ecommerce pioneer has seen its shares surge by more than 60% this year, more than double the increase for other tech giants such as Apple Inc. and triple that of retailers that have largely kept stores open such as Home Depot, according to FactSet.

"We don't know when we will recover out of this Covid crisis, but one thing that is certain is that these [shopping] trends are taking hold, and that's why more and more people are hiding in Amazon," said Hari Srinivasan, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman Group LLC, which owns roughly $1.8 billion worth of Amazon shares.

Shoppers have visited Amazon in record numbers, and the company has also seen growth in its web-services division as millions of workers stay home and their employers make greater use of cloud computing.

Write to Sebastian Herrera at Sebastian.Herrera@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 30, 2020 16:50 ET (20:50 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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