Amidst slowing sales and increasing economic uncertainty, Amazon continues to reduce costs and increase efficiency. On April 28th, Amazon released its financial report for the first quarter of 2023. According to the financial report, Amazon's net sales in the first quarter of 2023 increased by 9% to $127.4 billion, the same growth rate as the previous quarter. Among them, the sales of the North American division increased by 11% year-on-year to $76.9 billion, and the international business sales increased by 1% year-on-year to $29.1 billion. Amazon's core business AWS achieved net sales of $21.4 billion in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 16%, which is also the lowest growth rate of Amazon's cloud computing business since 2014, with a growth rate of 20% in the previous quarter. In terms of net profit, the first quarter net income was $3.2 billion, compared to a net loss of $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022. At the same time, Amazon had a pre tax valuation loss of $500 million on its investment in electric vehicle Rivian Automotive common stock in the first quarter. In the long run, Amazon's investments in Rivian are all at a loss. Amazon had a net loss of $2.7 billion in 2022, with a pre tax valuation loss of $12.7 billion on its investment in Rivian Automotive common stock, and a pre tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion in 2021. Rivian's stock price has been continuously declining since January 2022, with a price drop of 83.8% compared to its initial offering price of $78. However, Amazon is still optimistic about the development of electric vehicles and plans to put 100000 Rivian electric delivery vehicles on the road by 2030. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, This quarter, the retail business is continuing to reduce the cost of providing services while improving product fulfillment speed. The advertising business continues to achieve strong growth, mainly due to continuous machine learning investments. In addition, AWS business continues to reduce costs, and we continue to prioritize establishing long-term customer relationships, helping customers save money while making it easier for them to utilize technologies such as large language models and generative artificial intelligence, as well as using machines Machine learning chip, hosting large language models and AI code companion CodeWhisper Amazon's cost reduction measures include layoffs due to the "uncertainty and difficulties" of the global economy. Amazon announced the largest layoff in its history in early January of this year. Andy Jassy stated that layoffs will affect over 18000 employees, mainly in the human resources department, store department, experience department, and technology (PXT) team. This number is larger than the 10000 employee layoffs reported in November last year. Amazon has stated that the company increased its employees too quickly during the pandemic. In March, Amazon announced once again that it would lay off 9000 employees as part of its previously announced layoff plan. Recently, Amazon has started notifying some affected employees, including departments such as AWS, advertising, human resources, video games, and Twitch live streaming. Since the beginning of this year, Amazon has laid off a total of 27000 employees