Amazon’s advertising play pays off with $2 billion quarter
Amazon more than doubled its advertising revenue in the first quarter, demonstrating that the e-commerce giant is reaping the benefits of an aggressive shift into programmatic digital ad technology.
On Thursday, the company released its financial results, and advertising was by far its fastest-growing segment, generating $2.03 billion, an increase of 139 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. In the first quarter of 2017, Amazon posted $580 million in ad revenue, which represented a 60 percent jump year over year. So not only is ad revenue rising, but its pace of growth is climbing as well.
Advertising is reported under Amazon’s “other” business segment in its financial report, so not all of that $2 billion is actually from ads, but the company says the segment “primarily includes advertising.”
