Amazon.Com, Inc. (AMZN) Q4 2018 Conference Call Transcript – Motley's Fool

Amazon.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)
Q4 2018 Results Conference Call
January 31, 2018, 17:30. AND

content:

• Prepared notes
• Questions and answers
• Call the participants

Prepared notes:

Operator

Thank you for being here. Hello everyone and welcome to the teleconference on the financial results of the fourth quarter of 2018 from Amazon.Com. At this point, all participants are listening only. After the presentation, we will organize a Q & A session. The call of today is being recorded. For the opening remarks, I will give the floor to the director of investor relations, Dave Fildes. Please go ahead.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

Good morning and welcome to our conference call on the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2018. Brian Olsavsky, our CFO, is joining us today to answer your questions. As you listen to today 's conference call, we encourage you to have our press release in front of you, which includes our financial results as well as quarterly metrics and feedback. Please note that, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons presented in this call will relate to our results for the comparable period of 2017. Our comments and answers to your questions reflect only the management's opinion to date, the 31st January 2019. And will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ significantly.

Additional information on the factors that may affect our financial results can be found in today's press release and our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10K. and subsequent documents. During this call, we will be able to discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in our press release, the slides accompanying the webcast and our SEC notifications, each of which is posted on our IR website. You will find additional information on these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of these measures with comparable GAAP measures.

Our advice incorporates the old trends observed up to now and what we now consider to be appropriate badumptions. Our results are inherently unpredictable and can be materially affected by many factors, including changes in foreign currency exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and customer spending, global events, growth rate of the Company, and other factors. Internet, e-commerce and cloud services, and various factors. detailed in our filings with the SEC.

Our forecast also badumes, among other things, that we do not enter into any business acquisitions, investments, reorganizations or additional court settlements. It is not possible to accurately predict the demand for our products and services. As a result, our actual results could differ materially from our expectations. With that, let's go to Q & A. Operator, please remind our listeners how to ask a question.

Questions and answers:

Operator

We will now launch the call for questions. We ask each caller; please limit yourself to a question. If you have a question, please press * 1 on your keyboard. We ask you, when you ask your question, to take your handsets to provide the best sound quality. Again, to ask a question, please press * then 1 on your touch-tone phone at that time. Please wait while we answer your questions.

Thank you. Our first question comes from Justin Post's line with Merrill Lynch. Please continue with your question.

Justin Post – Merrill Lynch – Analyst

Great, thank you. I guess I'm going to ask about the units; 14% over the quarter. What do you think of the overall growth of units here as growth was stronger last year in the 20's? Do you think you can make investments in other areas to speed up the process?

And second, if you could remind us or help us understand the impact of Prime's accounting change on fourth-quarter subscription revenues? Thank you.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

Hey, Justin, this is Dave. Just on the second question about subscription services; You will probably remember, we said in the last call, about the adoption of the accounting standards update in the revenue recognition policies that affected our results in several areas in 2018. We had said that we had planned about $ 300 million. less headwind on subscription service revenues due to the accounting change.

So it's here that we went out for the quarter. You will find that we have reported a 26% increase in the subscription services business turnover excluding foreign exchange transactions. The 300 million are certainly part of this deceleration – the sequential deceleration of the online post of the growth rate.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yes, decelerating the unit; I think the numbers of units require more and more interpretation because they do not include some of our fastest growing regions. Like Dave, subscription services, AWS, advertising, Whole Foods, units are not part of that number. So we do not focus so much on numbers. I will direct you further to the forecasts of additional revenues that break down the components.

But in general, we are pleased with the quarter's growth. We believe that the fourth quarter, in particular, has been a great quarter for customers – the retail sector is very dynamic. The teams here had done a good job of planning, preparing, and then running the quarter. AWS maintained a very high growth rate and continued to provide services to its customers. We had an excellent reinvention conference during the quarter. We are pleased with quarter growth and total sales.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Mahaney's line with RBC Capital Markets. Please continue with your question.

Mark Mahaney – RBC Capital Markets – Analyst

Thank you. Do you just want to comment a little on the international revenue prospects in your comments on India and if you think that would have a significant impact on your business? Second, could you talk about advertising revenue? Just qualitatively or quantitatively how are you? And third, if I could; you spent a lot of money marketing during the quarter. This is a real breakthrough. Do you just want to talk about the return on investment you expect to get with these marketing expenses? Thank you so much.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Of course, Mark. The first questions about India, let me start with that. We have therefore incorporated in our estimate – the best estimate we have for the first quarter in India. However, there is a lot of uncertainty about the impact that changes in government rules will have on the e-commerce sector. We remain committed to respecting all laws and regulations, we will do so.

But we evaluate the situation. Our main problem, and our main concern, is trying to minimize the impact on our customers and sellers in India. We built our business around price selection and convenience. We do not believe that the changes made help these dimensions for both Indian customers and sellers. Dave, why do not you talk about the growth of advertising?

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

Yeah yeah. I mean, we keep going – we are very focused on serving this set of customers. One of the things we try to do is to continually evolve our tools and products to help this set of clients – agencies, advertisers – to ensure that they have various means to achieve their goals. Among the things we have done more recently in recent months, we have increased the number of sponsor brand placements, some of which have introduced new campaign reports and demo campaign management features.

So, there are a number of things beyond that. But the features available that will facilitate the growth of businesses with the advertising tools and advertising services that we offer. And we are always excited about this opportunity. And to answer your marketing question, the percentage of marketing revenue has increased by 110 basis points year-over-year. This category also includes AWS sales and marketing.

Keep this in mind as this is where a lot of our investment in people is headed. The workforce has increased only 14% over the previous year. But the areas that were growing in this mix were things like: technology teams, device areas, AWS, especially sales and marketing. The variable marketing was quite consistent with previous periods and we are satisfied with our return on investment in marketing, variable marketing.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Doug Anmuth's line with JP Morgan. Please continue with your question.

Doug Anmuth – JP Morgan – Analyst

Great, thank you. I just wanted to follow up on India. Just a bigger picture, Brian. Have the new policies changed your perception of the attractiveness or the potential for operation in India and what do you think of your short-term investment strategy? We also hope that you will be able to talk about the impact of free shipping in the United States and the United Kingdom during the fourth quarter holidays. Thank you.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yeah. In fact, we are still badessing the situation in India. We are very satisfied with the long-term prospects in India and the good work of both Indian customers and Indian sellers. The new regulations must be interpreted, they must make sure that they have no unintended consequences. And again, do not think that this necessarily corresponds to a better price, a better choice, a better comfort for the Indian customer. So, that's pretty much all we can say on this subject at the moment.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

And I think, Doug, that your second point was just shipments – some of the shipping deals for the holidays. We lowered the free shipping threshold as the fourth quarter approached, so that customers benefited from it. It was an interesting offer for them during the holidays. Brian has already talked about it a bit before, but he is happy with the holiday season, that it 's about a first party or sellers, but that sellers continue to look good. ;get out.

As part of this holiday offer, we also sold a record number of Alexa devices. And I think in this vain expedition, really delighted with the continued commitment of Premium members. We had the largest number ever of premium members enrolled this quarter. So, really happy with that.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark May's line with Citi. Please continue with your question.

Mark May – Citi – Analyst

Thank you. When I try to reduce the impact of factors such as Whole Foods, the change in accounting and other factors, I see stable and fairly healthy revenue growth in the sales sector. but a slowdown in the fourth quarter compared to what appears to have been the case. more recent quarters, significant expansion of the gross margin in the retail sector.

Can you discuss what may have motivated this and how to think about gross retail margins? Second, last year's retail margins benefited from several factors, including more modest hiring and smaller growth in distribution center capacity. Do you see these factors persist this year? Thank you.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yes, thank you Let me start with this last part because I think that if we go back and put 2018 in perspective, the structure of our costs clearly shows trends, starting with the costs of implementation. In the previous two years, 2016-17, we increased our square footage by more than 30% due to shipping needs. In 2018, this number has increased by 15%. True, the unit demand was lower, but the APN or Amazon satisfied the demand, where we combined FBA and retail, remains strong.

We have therefore carried out extensive expansion operations in the previous two years. In the same way, in terms of workforce, we increased the workforce by 48% in 2016. In 2017, 38% if we exclude the acquisitions of Whole Foods and Souq, which led the number to more than 60% I think. Last year, our growth was 14%. So, there was a lot of weight and a lot of – in a way, there was a lot of pre-hiring in 2017 that we digested in 2018 in some areas, particularly things like our sales activity in basic detail and also the function of G & A.

But then we continued to invest in technology related to AWS, a US-based sales team, the device business. There were groups that grew considerably higher than those 14%. But in total, the company has grown by 14%. And then on the capital, especially the capital of infrastructure. If you use the line of leasing as an indicator of what we have invested in our AWS business to support infrastructure and global expansion. This number increased by 10% last year, compared to 69% in 2017.

So, in many ways, 2018 was about the efficiency of investments in people, warehouses, and infrastructure, put in place in 2016 and 2017. We will continue to simultaneously drive the growth of customer offerings and services. Prime benefits, we certainly take the costs seriously and we will continue to work on operational efficiency. I would expect these investments to increase compared to 2018. And we reflected what we see so far in the first quarter in our forecasts.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Heath Terry with Goldman Sachs. Please continue with your question.

Heath Terry – Goldman Sachs – Analyst

Awesome. Thank you. A little – dig a little deeper into the capital Capex. You have said in the past that, generally speaking, you worked to meet your orientation expectations or that you tried not to overload or under-build when you thought about your ability to achieve your data center.

We saw that investment accelerated in the fourth quarter after reaching the lows you referred to in the third quarter. Do you have anything to say about what you expect from growth in activities that are accelerating after the slowdown observed at least in the first three quarters of last year?

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yes, I see total capital expenditures that increased 33% in the first quarter, 1% in the second quarter, -1% in the third quarter, and then 17% in the fourth quarter, the quarter itself. So, as you say, there was a little investment in Q4 compared to Q2 and Q3. I still think the 17% figure is a low number for us when you talk about supporting the AWS business that continues to grow at a very fast pace and a very strong and healthy growth of the customer demand and FBA and our expansion into new countries, both with AWS and also with our core business.

I am not willing to give you the forecast for the year right now. I would say that I would consider 2018 to be a lighter year of investment and lighter year for the addition of fixed staffing. Admittedly, compared to 2016 and 2017, we will reveal it during the year, but we integrated in the first quarter what we expect for the first three months.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Nowak and Morgan Stanley. Please continue with your question.

Brian Nowak – Morgan Stanley – Analyst

Thank you for taking my questions, I have two. The first is to return to fourth quarter gross margins. I think if you try to go back to AWS, it would seem that there has been a little more pressure on gross margins. Can you tell us about the put options and the take that we should know from the perspective of the fourth quarter gross margin? And then this other line that includes the advertising sector; Could you just help us – no help on the growth of the advertising sector or the impact of any of the quarter's accounting changes? Thank you.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yes of course. I'm sorry, I skipped the question of gross margin earlier. Yes, gross margins improved by 180 basis points over the previous year. We are not at the same level as the previous quarters. I would say that the favorable winds are still there. AWS has strong growth; 46% on a neutral currency basis. Third-party units continue to grow. Advertising funds continue to progress very well. I would say that some of the headwinds were the outbound transportation costs, including the free delivery that we did. But it was mainly Amazon's higher fulfillment units and the greater use of Amazon's logistics.

And I would also say that the retail business was very strong. We had one – I think Dave mentioned – the Echo Dot was the best-selling unit in the world. Device sales were therefore very good during the quarter. We discussed how we do not charge for devices to earn money. We generally expand our content or content by developing our device and its use by a group of customers using our devices. And then, we monetize that in different ways in a commitment to Amazon, the video and all the rest. So there was a bit of mixing, but I would say that this retail, which has a lower gross margin, is more due to the fact that revenue processing was stronger in the fourth quarter.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

Yes, and the other item of recipes, Brian, let's go back to accounting. We adopted it, this revenue accounting standard in 2018, as I mentioned. As part of the adoption, some advertising services were clbadified in the products rather than in a reduction in the cost of sales. For the fourth quarter, this change resulted in an increase of approximately $ 1 billion in other revenues. So you will see that in the other income, in total.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Colin Sebastian's line with Robert W. Baird. Please continue with your question.

Colin Sebastian – Robert W. Baird – Analyst

Thank you. I guess two for me too. During the quarter, regardless of India and its future impact, international growth accelerated. So, I was curious, regions or categories of particular products to call? Especially given the weakness of the United Kingdom. And then the market costs change in several categories, including home furnishings, health and beauty. Curious to know what is the strategy. I guess you widen the selection. But is this also an indication of increasing attention to these categories of retailers? Thank you.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Of course, let me start with your second question. Obviously, third-party sellers are an important part of our value proposition. They had a lot of success on our site. More than half of our units sold come from third-party sellers. It is very important for us to have the right business profile, both for Amazon and for the sellers. We will always move in this direction; this partly involves changing pricing structures, sometimes adding new taxes or subtracting old ones. This partly involves increasing or reducing the fees that sellers pay. You will see this continually from us.

We generally work to change fees to ensure that incentives are strong on both sides, and we continue to see healthy third-party growth. Internationally, on a currency neutral basis, growth was 15% in the third quarter and 19% in the fourth quarter. But the last call, if you remember, I talked about the timing of Diwali and its impact on our growth rates. If we adjust for that – and again, Diwali was mainly placed in Q4 this year and it was split between Q3 and Q4 last year. Taking this into account, international growth is relatively stable in the third quarter.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Lloyd Walmsley's line with Deutsche Bank. Please continue with your question.

Lloyd Walmsley – Deutsche Bank – Analyst

Thank you. Two if I can. First on the advertising side. We hear a lot of positive feedback from customers, but also suggestions regarding supply constraints. How do you see inventory growth relative to price growth as a driving factor in this business and can you do anything to increase your inventory? And secondly, there have been reports – your Amazon shipping efforts are expanding beyond some test markets. So you wonder if you can give us an idea of ​​what you saw in these test markets and how do you plan to intensify your shipping efforts in this area? Thank you.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

Yes, Lloyd, thanks for the questions. I will first take the advertising article. I think, as I said before, we are working to improve the usability of the tools. Our priorities in this area, and certainly one of them, are to look for ways to make smarter recommendations, to meet the needs of brands, to automate activities, to invent new products. And I think that, in all respects, in these priorities, we believe that there remains good growth to continue both in advertising for our properties, but also potentially beyond in the long run.

Since we are looking for advertising opportunities on sites such as Amazon.Com, we think there are a lot of opportunities and a lot of experimentation. I think we are learning and are a very data driven company and working with a lot of great brands to be able to develop better toolkits for them, understand what types of metrics they want to improve, with what They say. we.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Yes, and with regard to transportation, I guess you only talk about our expansion of Amazon, deliveries in Amazon logistics. Once again, we have excellent partners for our business and support globally. What we do is add capacity where we feel we need to accelerate service or guarantee demand, especially at peak times.

We will continue to develop our DSP or inflex and deliver with Amazon programs. Thus, during the quarter, it was a much larger presence from one year to the next. We are satisfied with this, both from the point of view of the performance and the estimation of the delivery, as we call it, the accuracy of the products delivered by ourselves as well as the cost profiles are also very good.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Sheridan's line with UBS. Please continue with your question.

Eric Sheridan – UBS – Analyst

Thank you for taking the question. Maybe two if I can. One, on the media side; Has there been increased investment in multimedia content to support your ambition for the future Premier and the video? It has been some years since we received an update on the expense ratio or its potential impact on historical or future periods. It would be number one.

And then number two, coming back to Lloyd's question on the front of advertising; what do you think of the video opportunity and go beyond the branded opportunities or the sponsored product search on your own properties and think about experimenting with video opportunities or connected TV that might well to appear before you? Thank you so much.

Brian Olsavsky — Financial director

Let me start with the video. We do not quantify today the spending on premium video quality, but we do – they have increased and we expect them to increase again in 2019. We are not watching not much, again, a strong continued adoption of use, visualization and display. We spent hours watching our music, our video streaming and our music. And that's a step back – it creates stronger premium connectivity with our premium members, at least the higher member renewal rates and overall engagement.

And we love what we see. We continue to see this commitment grow. I would say that we have had particular success recently with ten Golden Globes nominations and three Oscar nominations; and Jack Ryan, Homecoming, and the second season of The Marvelous, Ms. Maisel, in particular, were very well received during the quarter.

Dave Fildes – Director of Investor Relations

And then, on your second question, just around the advertising opportunities and the video. You may have seen it not so long ago, the IMDB Internet movie database, one of our affiliates, has launched Freedive, a free streaming video streaming channel funded by the advertising and available in the United States. It allows customers to watch TV shows and movies without subscribing to a subscription – funded by advertising. This is available on the IMDB website with your laptop or personal computer.

I think it's definitely on Fire TV devices and a great way to consume content. So, I'm excited about that. We also worked in advertising and video for a little longer, including our sports offerings, some of the live sports we offered; things like Thursday night football. We really appreciate the success we have found on these and we have learned from this prospect looking forward to looking for more opportunities to engage and serve customers with this type of video offerings, while taking advantage of the opportunity to make the advertising profitable.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Helfstein's line with Oppenheimer. Please continue your question.

Jason Helfstein – Oppenheimer – Analyst

Thank you. Only two. Can you just comment? the slowdown in advertising compared to the third quarter? First, you adjust somewhat to 606. Then, was there a reallocation of segments between online stores and physical stores? Et si non, commentez-vous la raison pour laquelle les magasins physiques ont baissé d’une année sur l’autre? Merci.

Brian Olsavsky — Directeur financier

Oui, merci Jason pour vos questions. Permettez-moi de commencer par les revenus des magasins physiques. Les magasins physiques ont diminué de 3% d'une année à l'autre. Il s'agit principalement de Whole Foods, mais également de nos autres magasins, les librairies Amazon, Amazon Go et Amazon 4 étoiles. Comme vous vous en souvenez, en 2017, nous avions acheté Whole Foods au troisième trimestre de l'année dernière. Au quatrième trimestre, nous avons ajusté leur calendrier fiscal pour le lier à celui d'Amazon. chiffre d'affaires au T4 de l'année dernière. Nous compilons donc cette année.

Le deuxième élément est que, comme vous l'avez dit, les commandes en ligne où les utilisateurs accèdent à la version précédente sans application puis pbadent pour la livraison ou la collecte dans les magasins Whole Foods comptent ou sont comptabilisées dans la composante des produits des magasins en ligne. Donc, si l’on tient compte de ces facteurs, la croissance d’une année à l’autre de Whole Foods a été d’environ 6%. À cause de certains de ces problèmes, encore une fois, principalement le problème de comptage d’une année à l’autre ou de jours. Cela représente -3% dans les magasins physiques.

Dave Fildes – Directeur des relations investisseurs

Et ensuite, juste sur votre deuxième question concernant la publicité. Si vous regardez les autres revenus, le taux de croissance a quelque peu ralenti. Donc, c'est 97%; toujours très forte croissance par rapport au quatrième trimestre. Comme vous le savez sans doute, le chiffre d’affaires des autres revenus est composé de plusieurs éléments, mais le plus important de tous est le produit de la publicité. Et nous entamons une période de croissance rapide l'année précédente. Cela fait partie du facteur, comme vous l'avez mentionné. Mais je répète juste; nous continuons de voir une adoption badez forte parmi les vendeurs, les vendeurs, les auteurs et tous les types d'annonceurs d'Amazon qui l'utilisent.

Opérateur

Thank you. Notre prochaine question vient de Dan Salmon, de BMO Marchés des capitaux. Veuillez poursuivre avec votre question.

Dan Salmon – BMO Marchés des capitaux – Analyste

Bonjour tout le monde. Cerveau, pouvez-vous simplement revenir à votre commentaire plus tôt sur l'utilisation accrue de la logistique d'Amazon, pas une surprise là-bas, mais simplement curieux pendant la saison des vacances; Avez-vous appris quelque chose en particulier sur la couleur et comment voyez-vous l'équilibre entre l'utilisation de votre propre logistique exclusive par rapport à des tiers en 2019?

Et puis juste un petit suivi, évidemment, les nouvelles de HQ2 sont parues au cours du trimestre. Que souligneriez-vous comme les prochaines étapes les plus importantes? Et peut-être un peu de couleur sur les commentaires de ce processus; serait intéressé d'entendre cela aussi. Thank you.

Brian Olsavsky — Directeur financier

Oui bien sûr. Commençons donc par HQ2. Bien sûr, en novembre, nous avons annoncé que nous avions choisi New York et le nord de la Virginie. Entre les deux villes, nous investirons 5 milliards de dollars et créerons plus de 50 000 emplois. Nous avons également annoncé l'ouverture d'un centre d'opérations d'excellence à Nashville, qui représenterait environ 5 000 emplois. En ce moment, nous travaillons sur les prochains numéros dans les deux villes.

Nous sommes impatients d’investir à New York et dans le nord de la Virginie et d’être un bon partenaire communautaire, ainsi que Nashville. Donc, pas vraiment grand-chose d'autre à signaler pour le moment. Sur votre commentaire ou question sur le transport; oui, nous continuons à développer notre logistique Amazon et notre capacité de livraison, et cela correspond également à la vitesse de notre navire, plus rapide que celle que nous constatons également pour les membres Prime. Nous avons bien sûr ajouté que nous avons plus de 100 millions d'articles que les clients peuvent obtenir en deux jours. Mais il y a maintenant plus de 3 millions qui seront livrés en un jour ou plus dans 10 000 villes et villages.

Ainsi, les livraisons Amazon sont une grande partie de cela. Encore une fois, nous avons d'excellents partenaires tiers dans le secteur des transports. Ce que nous aimons de notre capacité à participer au transport, c’est que souvent, nous pouvons le faire aux mêmes coûts ou mieux, et nous en apprécions également le profil des coûts. Nous pouvons également investir de manière sélective car nous disposons d'informations plus parfaites. Nous savons où est notre demande, nous savons où nous transportons des choses entre des entrepôts et des centres de tri. Et en ne faisant pas appel à des tiers tout le temps, nous avons constaté que nous pouvions prolonger nos délais de commande et nous l'avons fait au cours des dernières années. C'est donc également un avantage supplémentaire utile pour les consommateurs lorsque nous effectuons notre propre logistique: excusez-moi, transport, livraison finale. & # 39;

Opérateur

Thank you. Notre dernière question vient de la lignée de Ross Sandler avec Barclays. Veuillez poursuivre avec votre question.

Ross Sandler – Barclays – Analyste

Génial. Merci les gars. Ainsi, les marges d’exploitation d’AWS ont toujours légèrement évolué. Une couleur sur ce qui a conduit le déclin séquentiellement du T3 au T4? Et ensuite, je suppose que nous revenons à l'équipe de rattrapage des investissements. On dirait que 2019 sera un peu plus agressif de votre part. Pouvez-vous déterminer si vous vous attendez au rythme d'expansion de la marge de détail que nous observons actuellement en Amérique du Nord? Est-ce que ça va continuer et que la plupart de ces investissements vont être dans l'international et une partie de ce qui se pbade en Inde? Toute couleur sur la trajectoire de la marge d’exploitation nord-américaine, merci.

Brian Olsavsky — Directeur financier

Oui bien sûr. Permettez-moi de commencer par la marge d'exploitation AWS telle que vous l'avez annoncée. Ce nombre va se déplacer. Nous sommes très satisfaits des 29,3% enregistrés au cours du trimestre. Bien sûr, à tout moment, cette entreprise combinera baisse des prix, expansion géographique, recrutement de personnel – en particulier des équipes techniques et des équipes de vente chargées de créer de nouveaux produits innovants, tout en restant très pertinentes et en avance sur nos clients. 'esprits.

Et l'infrastructure, encore une fois, ça rebondira un peu entre les trimestres. Nos dépenses de location-acquisition au T4 ont été un peu plus élevées que celles des trois trimestres précédents, ce qui a eu un léger impact sur la marge opérationnelle. Mais encore une fois, les marges d’exploitation ont augmenté de près de 280 points de base par rapport à l’année précédente. Nous avons dit très ouvertement que cela allait rebondir. Ce que nous faisons est de créer de la valeur pour le client d'un côté, puis de travailler pour minimiser nos coûts d'infrastructure. Et nous faisons preuve de plus en plus de créativité pour améliorer notre efficacité et réduire notre coût d’acquisition.

Dave Fildes – Directeur des relations investisseurs

Merci de nous rejoindre à l'appel aujourd'hui et pour vos questions. Une rediffusion sera disponible sur notre site des relations avec les investisseurs au moins jusqu'à la fin du trimestre. We appreciate your interest in Amazon and look forward to talking with you again next quarter.

Duration: 34 minutes

Call participants:

Dave Fildes — Director of Investor Relations

Justin Post — Merrill Lynch — Analyst

Brian Olsavsky — Chief Financial Officer

Mark Mahaney — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst

Mark May — Citi — Analyst

Heath Terry — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Brian Nowak — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Colin Sebastian — Robert W. Baird — Analyst

Lloyd Walmsley — Deutsche Bank — Analyst

Eric Sheridan — UBS — Analyst

Jason Helfstein — Oppenheimer — Analyst

Dan Salmon — BMO Capital Markets — Analyst

Ross Sandler — Barclays — Analyst

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