How Much Does Amazon Make a Second, Minute, Hour & Day? More Than You Ever Imagined.
I‘m sure you‘ve heard that Amazon makes an astonishing amount of money. But have you ever wondered just how much the e-commerce giant earns on a granular level?
Let me walk you through the numbers…
Per day, Amazon makes around $638 million in revenue.
Per hour, that‘s $26.6 million.
Per minute, it‘s $443,000.
And per second, Amazon rakes in $7,385 in sales.
Yes, you read that right my friend – over $7,000 per second – from its retail business, AWS cloud computing and other services.
Keep reading as I uncover more mind-blowing stats and analysis around how much this company makes per time interval and how they generate such massive wealth.
Just How Much Does Amazon Make in a Day? More Than Many Countries‘ GDP
To start, let‘s look at how much cash Amazon is generating each day:
- ~$638 million per day
- $26.6 million per hour
- $443,000 per minute
- $7,385 per second
At over half a billion dollars per day, Amazon‘s daily revenue exceeds the annual GDP of many countries like Fiji, Belize and Guyana.
That means companies like Amazon and Apple make more money in a single day than some countries produce in an entire year!
To put Amazon‘s daily revenue in perspective for you as a consumer, check out these comparisons:
-
The average US household income is around $87,864 per year. At Amazon‘s daily rate, it would take only 1 day and 4 hours for Amazon to earn the equivalent of the average American household‘s total annual income.
-
A new Toyota Camry LE costs around $27,250. Amazon earns enough to buy about 23 new Camrys every minute off the production line.
-
A McDonald‘s Big Mac costs about $5.50. Amazon makes enough to buy over 80,000 Big Macs per minute.
I don‘t know about you, but numbers like these really put into perspective just how unfathomably profitable Amazon is on a daily basis!
Now let‘s go a level deeper and see how the dollars stack up per second for Jeff Bezos‘ giant cash cow.
Just How Much Does Amazon Make in a Second? More Than You Earn in a Week.
We‘ve established the sheer size of Amazon‘s daily revenue. Now let‘s shrink the time frame down to a single second:
-
Per second, Amazon makes $7,385 across all its businesses.
-
That‘s $7,385 per second, of every minute, of every hour, 365 days per year.
Let‘s use some analogies to conceptualize this amount per tick of the clock:
-
The federal minimum wage in the US is $7.25 per hour. For someone earning minimum wage, it would take 1,019 hours (or 42 days) of work to earn what Amazon makes in just 1 single second.
-
The average annual rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in the US is about $15,183. It would take Amazon just 2 seconds to earn enough to cover rent for a full year.
-
A new iPhone 14 Pro costs $999. Amazon makes enough to buy 7 new iPhones every second.
-
A Super Bowl ad slot costs around $7 million for 30 seconds. Amazon makes enough in 30 seconds to buy over 950 Super Bowl ads in cash.
I don‘t know about you, but calculating Amazon‘s earning power per second really astonished me.
It‘s simply incredible how much cash they generate in the blink of an eye. Jeff Bezos must love watching the money roll in by the second!
How Much Does Amazon Make in a Year? More Than Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Disney Combined.
Now let‘s take a broader look at what Amazon pulls in annually:
-
For the full year 2021, Amazon‘s total revenue was $469.8 billion.
-
For 2022, their revenue is forecasted to climb to $485 billion.
To give you an idea of scale, Amazon‘s 2021 revenue of $469.8 billion exceeded:
-
The entire GDP of Ireland ($572 billion)
-
The total 2021 revenue of Microsoft ($168 billion)
-
Combined 2021 revenue for Apple, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Intel and Disney ($446 billion)
Amazon is in a financial league of its own when looking at annual sales, both compared to major corporations and also the GDP of entire countries.
Below is a breakdown of where Amazon‘s revenue comes from to give you an idea of its key money-makers:
| Revenue Source | Percentage of Total Revenue |
|---|---|
| Online retail sales | 58% |
| AWS cloud computing | 33% |
| Advertising, subscriptions, other | 9% |
As you can see, commerce remains Amazon‘s primary revenue engine. But they‘ve diversified successfully into other high-growth areas.
According to analysts, Amazon is projected to hit a staggering $1 trillion in annual sales within the next 2-3 years. That‘s truly astounding growth my friend.
Next, let‘s look at how much money Jeff Bezos rakes in personally from Amazon‘s success.
How Much Does Jeff Bezos Make? More in 1 Minute Than You Make in a Year.
While Amazon the company is hugely profitable, its founder and former CEO makes bank too:
-
Jeff Bezos has an estimated current net worth of $124 billion.
-
He owns around 10% of Amazon‘s common stock.
-
From that stake alone, he makes approximately $149,353 per minute in wealth growth.
Once again, let me put those numbers in perspective for you:
-
The median US household income is $79,900 per year.
-
Jeff Bezos makes around 3x MORE in just 1 minute than the median US household earns from working full-time for an entire year.
-
If the average work week is around 40 hours, Jeff Bezos makes more in 10 minutes than the average American makes working full-time for 1 year and 4 months.
Talk about insane wealth generation! But of course, as Amazon goes, so does Jeff Bezos‘ bank account.
He fully deserves the title of one of the richest humans on Earth thanks to Amazon‘s staggering success.
How Does Amazon Make So Much Money? Prime Memberships, AWS and More.
You might be wondering – how does Amazon earn such massive revenues across e-commerce, cloud computing and other areas?
There are a handful of key ways that Amazon makes money:
-
Retail sales – Amazon sells products directly to consumers through its online store and earns a margin on these sales after accounting for product costs. Retail remains its primary revenue generator.
-
Third-party seller services – Amazon charges fees to external sellers who list and sell products through Amazon‘s marketplace. These fees add up to big money with over 2 million third-party sellers now on Amazon.
-
Amazon Prime subscriptions – For $139 per year, Prime members get benefits like free shipping, entertainment streaming and other perks. With over 200 million members globally, this accounts for over $27 billion in annual revenue for Amazon from Prime fees.
-
Amazon Web Services (AWS) – AWS is Amazon‘s cloud computing business that sells services related to computing, storage, databases and more to enterprises. It makes up the second largest share of Amazon‘s revenues.
-
Advertising – Amazon makes money by selling ad space on its site to companies wanting their products to appear prominently in search results.
-
Subscriptions – Revenue comes from audiobook, ebook, music and video subscriptions sold through Amazon.
-
Other services – Additional revenues are generated from Amazon services like product warranties, on-site advertising in Whole Foods stores, and sales of other home services like security systems.
As you can see, they‘ve smartly diversified revenue streams beyond just e-commerce sales. Prime remains a lynchpin, now with over 200 million members globally. And AWS locks in recurring subscription revenues as companies rely on its cloud infrastructure.
This diversification will continue to pay off handsomely for Amazon looking ahead.
Speaking of big paydays, let‘s look at how much Amazon cashes in during its Prime Day mega-sale.
How Much Does Amazon Make on Prime Day? As Much as Some Companies Earn All Year.
Prime Day has become one of Amazon‘s biggest sales days of the year. Here are some stats around the money Amazon raked on Prime Day 2022:
-
Over 300 million items were sold worldwide
-
Total sales hit $11.9 billion over the 2 days
-
This was a 7.5% increase over 2021‘s Prime Day numbers
To put $11.9 billion in perspective:
-
Prime Day sales exceeded Starbucks‘ total revenue in 2021 ($10.7 billion)
-
It‘s more than Nike‘s total yearly revenue ($11.2 billion)
-
Amazon sold enough on Prime Day to cover the average household‘s credit card debt ($8,398) 1.4 million times over!
As you can see, Prime Day is hugely lucrative for Amazon – a massive 2-day payday to lock in new Prime subscribers and move major inventory.
Based on growth trends, expect total Prime Day revenues to likely top $15 billion in the next couple years.
Of course, selling $15 billion+ in 48 hours requires a vast selection of products at the ready. So just how big is Amazon‘s product selection?
How Many Products Does Amazon Sell? More Than Entire Store Chains.
For Amazon to generate this level of revenue, they need products…lots and lots of products:
-
Amazon sells over 350 million products worldwide. Yes, over a third of a billion!
-
Out of the 350 million total, 12 million products are stocked and shipped directly by Amazon.
-
The rest are sold by over 2 million active third-party sellers on Amazon‘s marketplace.
To conceptualize how many 350 million products is, it‘s:
-
5x more than the total number of products carried by Walmart (100 million)
-
15x more than Target sells (23 million)
-
25x more than Home Depot, who sells around 14 million different home improvement SKUs
In short, Amazon‘s product selection is truly staggering. Virtually any consumer product you can think of is available on their site, giving Amazon unrivaled selection power.
Of course, 350 million products leads to a lot of shipping. So how many orders does Amazon handle daily?
How Many Amazon Orders Are There Per Day? Enough to Give 1 Package to Every Person in L.A.
With hundreds of millions of products available for purchase, Amazon ships an astonishing number of orders daily:
-
Across all its sites globally, Amazon delivers an average of 37 million packages per day.
-
In the US alone, around 7 million daily packages are shipped from Amazon‘s 175 fulfillment and sortation centers.
-
During peak periods like Prime Day and the holidays, daily order volumes can reach as high as 60 million worldwide.
To conceptualize how many packages 37 million is:
-
It‘s enough to provide every single person in Los Angeles (population 3.9 million) with 10 packages each day.
-
Laid end to end, 37 million packages would stretch over 90,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth 4 times!
Given the immense order volume it handles, it‘s no surprise Amazon invests so heavily in its supply chain infrastructure, transportation fleet and logistics capabilities.
The company is essentially its own shipping empire, with millions of items in constant motion to meet demand.
Amazon By the Numbers – Key Stats Summary
To wrap up, let‘s summarize some of the key stats showing Amazon‘s immense scale:
-
Revenue
- Per second: $7,385
- Per day: $638 million
- 2021 total: $469.8 billion
-
Prime Memberships
- Over 200 million globally as of 2022
- Account for over $27 billion in annual fees
-
Products
- Over 350 million globally
- Around 12 million stocked directly by Amazon
-
Packages Shipped
- Avg. 37 million per day globally
- Avg. 7 million per day in the US
- Peak of 60 million per day during holidays
-
Jeff Bezos Wealth
- Current net worth around $124 billion
- Makes ~$149k per minute from his Amazon stake
I don‘t know about you, but looking at all these numbers gives me a true sense of the scale at which Amazon operates. It seems there is no limit to their growth.
The Bottom Line – Amazon‘s Earnings Are Truly Mind-Blowing
Well there you have it my friend – a fully detailed look at how much cash Amazon rakes in down to the second.
To summarize, at over $7,000 per second, $443,000 per minute and $638 million per day, Amazon‘s earning power is simply off the charts.
They‘ve built an absolute money-making machine through constantly expanding products and services like Prime, Alexa, AWS and much more.
Not only is Amazon generating insane revenues as a company, but it‘s made Jeff Bezos one of the richest men alive with his net worth crossing $100 billion.
It‘s no exaggeration to say Amazon has truly revolutionized commerce and shaped the future of how we shop and live. The question is – can they possibly sustain this breakneck speed of growth and innovation?
One thing is certain – Amazon will continue to find new ways make to make money hand over fist. Although the numbers are already so big, I wouldn‘t bet against Amazon hitting $1 trillion per year in revenue one day.
But for now, the next time you buy something on Amazon and click checkout, remember that "cha-ching!" you hear is Amazon racking up sales at a clip of over $7,000 per second. It‘s almost hard to even fathom!
I hope you found this detailed dive into Amazon‘s earnings per second, minute, hour and day as astonishing and eye-opening as I did researching it. Let me know if you have any other questions on this money-making giant!