Amazon News [Jan 29, 2023]

Amazon (AMZN) investors closed off the week with the stock gaining +4.65% the last 5 days, which means it sits at +19.13% YTD.

Here's this weeks news on Amazon - let's go through it together.

LEGEND: Positive News | Neutral News | Negative News

Amazon Air is now being used in India.

This is a major step in improving delivery time in India to help move packages around quicker. This is not the drone delivery service, but rather an air cargo service to transport Amazon packages around.

AWS has announced a second location in Australia for customers to host their data.

This will help with higher reliability and resiliency, security, and lower latency (things load quicker!). The new location is expected to create 2,500+ new jobs and will cost about $4.5B worth of investment as the project runs through 2037. 

Localization of data is important to some customers that are international, and having data routed through the US isn't always an option due to local privacy laws.

This move helps customers keep their data in their own country, thus making AWS a more appealing option vs competition or hosting data yourself.

Amazon's new movie, Air, will be released in theatres (I guess movie chains aren't dead?).

This movie is centered around Air Jordan, a wildly successful brand, and how it was created and became the monster it is today.

A bunch of famous names are set to star in this movie - Ben Affleck and Matt Damon being the biggest, but we also have Chris Tucker and others in there!

We'll have to closely monitor how successful this theatre push by Amazon is because it could become a common occurrence if this goes well.

Amazon is expanding it's partnership with Stripe.

We discussed the new Buy With Prime from Amazon, and this new deal relates back this. Stripe powers this service, along with other purchases through Amazon's offerings like Audible, Kindle, etc. - and now Stripe is the strategic payments partner for Amazon (for US, Canada, and Europe). 

Stripe plans to expand use of AWS, so this is where Amazon will benefit from this partnership.

There's something magical about seeing two market leaders work together and help each other grow!

Amazon faced a lawsuit who former Whole Foods employees on getting fired illegally, but a Judge dismissed this claim.

The claim was around workers who were discriminated against for wearing BLM masks (Black Lives Matter). The Judge however found that Amazon reserves the right to enforce a dress code and this wasn't a targeted firing as this applied to all workers at the organization.

Amazon has announced a new monthly subscription for prescription medication.

The new service, called RxPass, is a $5/month subscription for Prime members (look out GoodRx Gold). The HUGE announcement though is this is one flat fee per month to get all the eligible medication you need!

This appears like it could be a loss-business for the foreseeable future for Amazon, but could have long term benefits to attract new members to the platform.

This new offering is a two fold positive move - this is creating another value add to purchase a Prime membership, as well as creating a brand new revenue stream at $5/month/member for prescriptions.

Amazon's moat is widening.

Amazon has bought nearly 400 acres of land in Ohio for $116.65M.

This is part of Amazon's plan to continue expanding across the country, and it just so happens that Intel has similar plans as they have a 1,000 acre lot nearby.

This could be one of the next tech hubs for Ohio so keep this on a list of places that could see nice housing market appreciation in future years!

An Amazon warehouse in England is likely to see its workers go on a 24 hour strike this week. 

This will be the first strike in Britain, and is largely around salary. There could be about 300 employees participating. The current salary is £10.50-£11.45, but workers want to see this increased to £15.

Reasons cited for this demand from workers is inflation is increasing cost of living.

Amazon is looking to sell a California office that it bought in 2021 for $123 Million.

This is a 29 acre space that they feel isn't useful for them anymore (especially since they've been cutting costs aggressively). It's all part of cost optimization for 2023!

Amazon will start charging Prime members a delivery fee on groceries for orders under $150 on February 28.

The fee breakdown is as follows for orders under $150:

• $3.95 for orders between $100-$150
• $6.95 for orders between $50-$100
• $9.95 for orders under $50

In an email sent to customers (you may have received it too!) they state "This service fee will help keep prices low in our online and physical grocery stores as we better cover grocery delivery costs and continue to enable offering a consistent, fast, and high-quality delivery experience"

This is a step change from the free delivery previously offered (for orders over $50), but it's a move Amazon has decided to make as it focuses on profitability.

We look forward to spending a few minutes with you next Sunday for some new Amazon news!

Disclosure: I am a Amazon.com (AMZN) shareholder at the time of publishing.