Amazon's first-quarter revenue surges 43 percent

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc reported a 43 percent jump in first-quarter revenue on Thursday, driven by a surge in online shopping and higher demand for its cloud services.

Amazon, which reported it had over 100 million Prime subscribers last week, said its net sales rose to $51.04 billion from $35.7 billion, a year earlier.

Net income rose to $1.63 billion, or $3.27 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31 from $724 million, or $1.48 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company's fast-growing cloud services business, soared 48.6 percent to $5.44 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $5.25 billion, according Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

 

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)