Amazon delivers a huge earnings beat heading into Jeff Bezos' final quarter as CEO

• Amazon reported revenue of $108.52 billion for the first quarter of 2021, beating expectations.
• Sales were up 44% year over year, and AWS gained 32% over the same quarter last year.
• Strong sales are expected to continue into the second quarter, bolstered by Prime Day before July.

Amazon delivered a strong beat for its first-quarter earnings on Monday, with $108.52 billion in revenue powered by its AWS cloud-computing division and continued tailwinds for online shopping during the pandemic.

The company's share price jumped in after-hours trading, reaching a record high of $3,651.

Amazon issued a rosy outlook for the upcoming quarter, underlining the company's expectations of strong sales amid the vaccine rollout and economic recovery.

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Here are the key numbers the company reported, compared with analysts' expectations averaged by Bloomberg:

• Revenue: $108.52 billion versus $104.57 billion expected
• EPS (GAAP): $15.79 versus $9.69 expected
• AWS Revenue: $13.5 billion versus $13.09 billion expected

Total revenue increased 44% year over year from $75.5 billion, while AWS sales grew by 32% from $10.22 billion in that period. Profits increased to $8.1 billion, more than tripling the $2.5 billion posted in the first quarter of last year.

"In just 15 years, AWS has become a $54 billion annual sales run rate business competing against the world's largest technology companies, and its growth is accelerating," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

The company said its annual Prime Day megadeals event would be returning to a summertime slot after being pushed back to October last year because of disruption from the pandemic. The return should give a boost to second-quarter sales, which the company projected to land between $110 billion and $116 billion. The company also said it expects to spend about $1.5 billion on COVID-19-related expenses.

Amazon topped 200 million Prime subscribers earlier this month, up from 150 million at the start of 2020.

Bezos said: "175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year, and streaming hours are up more than 70% year over year."

On Wednesday, the company announced a $1 billion investment to provide pay increases for 500,000 workers, ranging between $0.50 and $3 an hour, which will affect four teams: fulfillment, delivery, package sortation, and specialty fulfilment.