| To: kidl who wrote (164657) | 1/6/2024 12:21:55 AM | | From: Zen Dollar Round | | | | I didn't renew my Amazon Prime membership last year after I calculated the per shipment cost of everything I'd ordered and realized I wasn't saving any money.
I didn't use Prime Video enough to justify the expense either, and with news people will have to pay an extra $3/mo soon to watch videos without ads, I'm glad I let it lapse.
Like you, I've found Amazon's shipping to be very fast anyway, so on occasions I do order from them I've been happy with the service. |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 1/10/2024 10:05:14 AM | | | | | | Amazon Cutting Hundreds of Jobs at Prime Video and MGM Studios
Division leader Mike Hopkins said "we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas" in a memo to staff on Wednesday.
BY ALEX WEPRIN
The Hollywood Reporter+
JANUARY 10, 2024 5:55AM
Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs in its Prime Video and MGM Studios division.
Mike Hopkins, the executive who leads the division, announced the reduction in an email Wednesday morning, writing that “several hundred roles” would be eliminated.
“Our industry continues to evolve quickly and it’s important that we prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business, while relentlessly focusing on what we know matters most to our customers,” he wrote. “Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers. As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact.”
Prime Video is home to shows like Reacher and The Boys, while MGM produces films from the James Bond and Rocky franchises, among others. Freevee, Amazon’s free ad-supported streaming service, also has original programming like Jury Duty and Primo.
It is not clear how this week’s cuts will impact those divisions, or where they are focused.
They also come just before Amazon is set to turn on ads for Prime Video, requiring users to pay an extra $3 per month to avoid them. The move is estimated to instantly deliver billions of dollars in incremental revenue to the division.
The cuts come after Amazon laid off more than 25,000 employees last year. Prime Video and MGM also faced cuts in early 2023.
Read Hopkins’ note below:
Team,
We’ve taken significant steps towards our long-term vision of making Prime Video the first-choice entertainment destination for customers worldwide, and I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished as a team to date. Our investments in programming, marketing, and technology have enabled us to expand our selection of blockbuster movies, hit tv series, live sports, the world’s largest TVOD catalog along with over 650 partner Channels worldwide, and AVOD services including Freevee – all available in a single destination, delighting customers around the globe. And, through our acquisition of MGM, we’ve increased our investments in theatrical films and driven growth in MGM+ and our licensing and third-party production businesses.
Yet, at the same time, our industry continues to evolve quickly and it’s important that we prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business, while relentlessly focusing on what we know matters most to our customers. Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers. As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact. As a result of these decisions, we will be eliminating several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization.
Today, we will begin to reach out to colleagues who are impacted by these role reductions. Notifications will be sent out shortly, and we expect all notifications in the Americas to be completed this morning (Pacific time), and most other regions by the end of the week. We are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies, possibly resulting in longer timelines to communicate in some countries.
This is a difficult decision to make and one that my leadership team and I do not take lightly. It is hard to say goodbye to talented Amazonians who’ve made meaningful contributions on behalf of our customers, team and business. Thank you for your dedication and work. To help with the transition, we are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional benefits as applicable by country, and external job placement support.
Our prioritization of initiatives that we know will move the needle, along with our continued investments in programming, marketing and product, positions our business for an even stronger future. Prime Video is one of the most popular benefits for Prime members, and one of most widely used entertainment destinations in the world. I’m proud of the work you do every day on behalf of our customers, and I’m looking forward to continuing to build our business for the future.
-Mike
Amazon Cuts Hundreds of Jobs at Prime Video and MGM – The Hollywood Reporter |
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| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (164659) | 1/10/2024 10:14:08 AM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | Amazon’s Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff
Move is designed to stem losses after two rounds of layoffs last year.
By Cecilia D'Anastasio
Blooomberg
January 9, 2024 at 10:28 PM UTC
Amazon.com Inc.’s livestreaming site Twitch is poised to cut 35% of its staff, or about 500 workers, according to people familiar with the plans, the latest in a series of job reductions there.
The cuts, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday, come amid concerns over losses at Twitch and after several top executives left the company in the span of a few months. A Twitch spokesperson declined to comment.
Running a large-scale website supporting 1.8 billion hours of live video content a month is enormously expensive, despite Twitch’s reliance on Amazon’s infrastructure, company executives have said. In December, Twitch Chief Executive Officer Dan Clancy said the company would cease operations in South Korea, where the costs are “prohibitively expensive,” according to a blog post he wrote.
Twitch has increased its focus on advertising in recent years. Nine years after Amazon’s acquisition of the company, the business remains unprofitable, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
In the final months of 2023, several top executives announced their departures, including Twitch’s chief product officer, chief customer officer and chief content officer. Twitch also lost its chief revenue officer, who worked on Twitch from within Amazon’s Ads unit.
“It’s always bittersweet when talented leaders move on to pursue new opportunities,’’ a Twitch spokesperson said at the time. “We are incredibly grateful for their contributions to Twitch and our community, and wish them all the best.”
The former employees all declined to comment.
Since he took the position in March 2023, Clancy has been on a cross-country charm offensive to mend relations with the gaming celebrities who make a living streaming on Twitch. Many of them chafed at Twitch’s original approach to ads, which the company reworked after criticism. Streamers have praised Clancy’s desire to listen to their concerns after years of complaints that the service was out of touch with its users.
The new chief has struggled to stem losses, however. Twitch undertook two rounds of layoffs last year, cutting over 400 positions, part of wider job reductions at Amazon.
The online retail giant initiated its biggest-ever corporate job cuts in 2022, which it expanded to 27,000 positions across the company. It continued in October with a new round of cuts to its music division, which encompasses the company’s audio streaming platform and digital storefront for songs.
Amazon’s Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff - Bloomberg (archive.ph) |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 1/29/2024 10:16:23 AM | | | | | | Amazon terminates iRobot deal, vacuum maker to lay off 31% of staff
PUBLISHED MON, JAN 29 20248:37 AM EST
UPDATED 2 MIN AGO
Rohan Goswami @IN/ROHANGOSWAMICNBC/ @ROGOSWAMI
CNBC.com
The iRobot headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts, US, on Friday, June 16, 2023. Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed $1.7 billion deal to buy robot vacuum firm iRobot Corp. was given the all-clear by the UKs antitrust agency. Photographer: Sophie Park/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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Amazon said on Monday it would not move forward with a planned acquisition of vacuum-maker iRobot, with the two companies saying in a release there was “no path to regulatory approval for the deal.”
The vacuum maker also announced it would lay off 31% of its employees, around 350 people, and that its chair and CEO Colin Angle would step down effective immediately.
iRobot shares fell 15% on the news.
The fate of the deal was plunged into uncertainty after The Wall Street Journal reported that the European Union would not offer regulatory approval.
“We’re disappointed that Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot could not proceed,” Amazon senior vice president and general counsel David Zapolsky said in a release.
iRobot said it would focus on margin improvements, reduce spending on research and development and pause all work on “non-floorcare” products, including its air purifiers and robotic lawn mowers.
Amazon will pay iRobot a previously-agreed-upon $94 million breakup fee. The terminated deal would have valued iRobot at roughly $1.7 billion.
The robotic vacuum maker has a market capitalization of under $400 million, following Monday’s news and prior reports that the European Union would move to block the deal.
The European Commission did not immediately return CNBC’s request for comment.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Amazon terminates iRobot deal, vacuum maker to lay off 31% of staff (cnbc.com) |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/2/2024 5:25:33 AM | | | | | | Amazon reports better-than-expected results as revenue jumps 14%00
PUBLISHED THU, FEB 1 202412:00 PM EST
UPDATED THU, FEB 1 20246:48 PM EST
Annie Palmer @IN/ANNIERPALMER/
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
- Amazon trounced analysts’ expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and revenue.
- The company gave optimistic guidance for the first quarter.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco on June 8, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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Amazon on Thursday reported fourth-quarter results that sailed past analysts’ estimates, and gave strong guidance for the current quarter. The stock climbed more than 8% in extended trading.
Here are the results:
- Earnings per share: $1.00 vs. 80 cents expected by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv
- Revenue: $170 billion vs. $166.2 billion expected by LSEG
Wall Street is also watching several other numbers in the report:
- Amazon Web Services: $24.2 billion vs. $24.2 billion, according to StreetAccount
- Advertising: $14.7 billion vs. $14.2 billion, according to StreetAccount
Amazon said first-quarter sales will be between $138 billion and $143.5 billion, representing growth of 8% to 13%. Analysts were expecting revenue of $142.1 billion, according to Refinitiv.
Amazon easily topped Wall Street’s expectations for earnings, indicating that CEO Andy Jassy’s efforts to rein in costs are paying off. Net income surged to $10.6 billion, or $1.00 per share, compared to $278 million, or 3 cents per share, a year earlier.
The company laid off 27,000 employees between late 2022 and mid-2023, and ended some of its more unproven bets. It has continued to look for ways to trim expenses in other areas, such as its fulfillment business. In January, it announced cuts in Prime Video, MGM Studios and Twitch, among other units.
Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told reporters on Thursday that the company will continue to take a careful approach on new investments, but that it doesn’t see 2024 “as a year of efficiency type thing.”
“We’re going to continue to invest in new things and new areas and things that are resonating with customers,” Olsavsky said. “Where we can find efficiencies and do more with less, we’re going to do that as well.”
Revenue jumped 14% to $170 billion in the fourth quarter. The period reflects results from the holiday shopping season and Amazon’s October Prime Day event, both of which the company said exceeded its expectations.
“This Q4 was a record-breaking Holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon,” Jassy said in a statement. “As we enter 2024, our teams are delivering at a rapid clip, and we have a lot in front of us to be excited about.”
Sales at Amazon Web Services climbed 13% in the fourth quarter to $24.2 billion, in line with Wall Street’s forecast. That marks a slight uptick from the previous quarter, when sales expanded 12%, but it’s a deceleration from the year-ago period, when sales grew 20%.
For the past year, growth in AWS has slowed, as businesses trimmed their cloud spend. But Olsavsky said the company is seeing those cost optimizations diminish, and new workloads are picking up. He said there has been “a lot of interest” in AWS’ generative artificial intelligence products, such as “Q,” an AI chatbot for businesses.
Jassy said on a conference call with analysts that generative AI services remain a “relatively small” business, but the company believes they could drive “tens of billions of dollars” in revenue within the next several years.
Ahead of its earnings release Thursday, Amazon announced a generative AI shopping assistant, dubbed Rufus, which it’s testing among a subset of users in the U.S.
Amazon’s profitable advertising unit saw sales grow 27% year over year to $14.7 billion. Last month, the company began showing ads on Prime Video content, in a move analysts project will generate substantial new revenue for the business. Olsavsky said the company has seen “a lot of enthusiasm” from advertisers, but that Amazon plans to keep ad loads low.
Amazon (AMZN) Q4 earnings report 2023 (cnbc.com) |
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| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (164663) | 2/2/2024 5:45:11 AM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | Amazon Could Soon Be on Hook for Safety of Third-Party Products It Sells and Ships
Order from Consumer Product Safety Commission could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims
By Dana Mattioli and Khadeeja Safdar
Wall Street Journal
Feb. 1, 2024 5:30 am ET
Amazon has argued that it is a marketplace and a third-party logistics provider rather than a distributor. PHOTO: BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Amazon.com AMZN is facing a government order that could make it responsible for the safety of goods that it sells for outside vendors on its website and ships for them through its logistics network.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing an order that could classify Amazon’s online retail business as a distributor of goods, according to people familiar with the matter. That designation could give Amazon the same safety responsibilities as traditional retailers and potentially open Amazon up to lawsuits and extensive recalls over items sold through its website. Amazon accounts for nearly 40% of all e-commerce in the U.S., according to eMarketer, a research firm.
Amazon has fought the distributor designation because of the nature of its online marketplace. The company sells some items from its own inventory, as bricks-and-mortar stores do, but more than 60% of sales on Amazon.com are by outside vendors, known as third-party sellers.
Amazon has said that it invests in product safety across its site. It also has argued that for those third-party sales it is merely a platform for sellers and buyers to connect, and therefore isn’t responsible for ensuring the quality and safety of products sold by outside vendors on its site.
Inside Amazon’s Strategy to Redefine Fast Shipping, AgainYOU MAY ALS
WSJ visits an Amazon same-day facility to explore the company’s fast-shipping strategy. Photo illustration: JJ Lin
-------------------------------
The commission’s order could negate such arguments from Amazon, and from other marketplaces and technology companies that are similarly structured and have argued that they aren’t legally responsible for what others do on their platforms, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.
A majority of the agency’s four current commissioners would have to vote in favor of the order for it to advance.
“Safety is important to Amazon, and we want customers to shop with confidence in our store,” said an Amazon spokesman. The company takes steps to prevent suspicious or noncompliant products from being listed, monitors products for safety concerns, and removes products when appropriate and notifies the companies and government agencies involved, he said.
The consumer safety agency began investigating Amazon in 2019 after a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal chronicled how Amazon’s marketplace side of its retail operations had sellers distributing dangerous and mislabeled products, such as children’s toys lacking proper choking-hazard warnings, motorcycle helmets that failed federal safety tests and children’s toys that contained lead levels exceeding federal limits.
Amazon has said that it invests in product safety across its site. PHOTO: BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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In 2021, the commission sued Amazon for distributing unsafe products from sellers on its website through Fulfillment by Amazon, which handles logistics for third-party sellers. The agency cited three specific products in that suit: children’s pajamas that failed flammability tests, a carbon monoxide detector that failed to detect carbon monoxide accurately and hair driers without the required shock protectors in the plug.
Amazon issued credits to customers who bought the items and told them to stop using them.
Amazon responded to the commission’s suit by saying that the agency didn’t have the legal power to make such claims against the company because it was acting as a marketplace and a “third-party logistics provider” rather than a distributor.
An administrative law judge determined that Amazon did have distributor status and responsibility. Amazon appealed, setting the stage for the commission’s impending vote.
The volume of faulty, dangerous or mislabeled items sold by Amazon third-party sellers is much more extensive than the three items in the agency’s suit, according to the people familiar with the matter, and an order from the agency would likely make the company susceptible to customer lawsuits and more-rigorous enforcement from the federal government well beyond the named products.
Amazon’s marketplace for third-party sellers, launched in 2000, has been the linchpin to its dominance in online retail. Marketing and shipping goods from outside vendors to its customers dramatically increased selection on Amazon’s website, attracting more customers and eventually making it a one-stop shop for everything from electronics to vitamins.
Third-party sellers aren’t necessarily subject to the same scrutiny as vendors trying to sell at a major traditional U.S. retailer. Many outside sellers are based in China or other countries with different product-safety regimens. Some small resellers in the U.S. have been found to dupe customers by selling items of dubious quality.
The Journal reported in 2019 that individuals were reselling items they found in the trash on Amazon and delivering them through its Fulfillment by Amazon business, which stores and ships products from many third-party sellers. Amazon at the time updated its policy to explicitly prohibit selling items taken from the trash.
Write to Dana Mattioli at dana.mattioli@wsj.com and Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com
Amazon Could Soon Be on Hook for Safety of Third-Party Products It Sells and Ships - WSJ (archive.ph) |
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| From: Sr K | 4/3/2024 5:11:58 PM | | | | | | After the close today
TECHNOLOGY
Amazon Cuts Hundreds of Jobs in Cloud-Computing Business
Layoffs at AWS will impact teams such as sales, marketing and global services
By
Talal Ansari
and
Sebastian Herrera
Updated April 3, 2024 4:15 pm ET
Listen
(3 min)
Amazon has worked to promote its AI efforts, which it has largely done through Amazon Web Services. PHOTO: NOAH BERGER/AWS/REUTERS
Amazon.com is slashing hundreds of jobs from its cloud-computing business, the tech giant’s latest round of layoffs as it aims to cut costs.
Amazon Web Services said it planned to eliminate several hundred jobs in sales, marketing and global services. It said it would cut hundreds more from its physical stores technology team, which focuses on the systems underlying the company’s cashierless checkout programs.
Exc. |
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| From: Julius Wong | 4/11/2024 9:19:20 AM | | | | | |
Amazon's Jassy touts AWS, Kuiper opportunities, says generative AI is 'next pillar'
Apr. 11, 2024 8:47 AM ET
By: Chris Ciaccia, SA News Editor
 krblokhin/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Chief Executive Andy Jassy published his annual letter to shareholders on Thursday and touted the rebound in cloud computing and said generative artificial intelligence is its "next pillar."
The 56 year-year-old Jassy, who took over for company founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, said Amazon Web Services ended the year on a strong note after customers were worried about cost for much of 2023.
"By the end of 2023, we saw cost optimization attenuating, new deals accelerating, customers renewing at larger commitments over longer time periods, and migrations growing again," Jassy wrote.
Revenue attributed to AWS increased 13% year-over-year to $91B in 2023, up from $80B in 2022.
Satellite internet opportunity
Project Kuiper, Amazon's satellite broadband internet initiative, was also highlighted in the letter, as Jassy called it a "very large revenue opportunity" for the company.
"We’re on track to launch our first production satellites in 2024," Jassy wrote. "We’ve still got a long way to go, but are encouraged by our progress."
The company launched two end-to-end prototype satellites into space in October. Two months later, Amazon said it had successfully completed tests of an optical mesh network of laser links between its Project Kuiper internet satellites in low Earth orbit.
Project Kuiper, which competes with other satellite internet services such as SpaceX's ( SPACE) StarLink, is Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite initiative.
It aims to provide broadband connectivity to the 400-500M households that don't currently have it, as well as providing better connectivity in remote areas.
'Next pillar of growth'
Jassy talked up artificial intelligence in his 2023 letter to shareholders, but he now believes generative AI is the company's next pillar.
"While we’re building a substantial number of GenAI applications ourselves, the vast majority will ultimately be built by other companies," Jassy wrote. "However, what we’re building in AWS is not just a compelling app or foundation model."
Amazon has three pillars, or areas that it describes as its most successful businesses: retail, Prime and cloud computing.
He added that AWS's services will hit three layers of the stack —building foundation models, leveraging foundation models and the application layers — "comprise a set of primitives that democratize this next seminal phase of AI, and will empower internal and external builders to transform virtually every customer experience that we know (and invent altogether new ones as well). We’re optimistic that much of this world-changing AI will be built on top of AWS."
Separately on Thursday, Amazon appointed AI expert Dr. Andrew Ng to its board of directors. Ng is the Managing General Partner of AI Fund and previously worked at Google ( GOOG) ( GOOGL) and Baidu ( BIDU). |
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