亞馬遜 (AMZN) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Amazon.com Q3 2022 Financial Results Teleconference. (Operator Instructions) Today's call is being recorded.

感謝您的支持。大家好，歡迎參加亞馬遜 2022 年第三季財務業績電話會議。 （操作員指示）今天的通話正在錄音。

For opening remarks, I will be turning the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Dave Fildes. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.

在開幕致詞時，我將把電話轉給投資者關係副總裁戴夫·菲爾德斯 (Dave Fildes)。謝謝您，先生。請繼續。

Hello, and welcome to our Q3 2022 financial results conference call. Joining us today to answer your questions is Brian Olsavsky, our CFO. 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 metrics and commentary on the quarter. Please note, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons in this call will be against our results for the comparable period of 2021.

您好，歡迎參加我們 2022 年第三季財務業績電話會議。今天與我們一起回答您的問題的是我們的財務長 Brian Olsavsky。當您收聽今天的電話會議時，我們鼓勵您閱讀我們的新聞稿，其中包括我們的財務表現以及本季度的指標和評論。請注意，除非另有說明，本次電話會議中的所有比較都將針對我們 2021 年同期的結果進行。

Our comments and responses to your questions reflect management's view as of today, October 27, 2022, only and will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially. Additional information about factors that could potentially impact our financial results is included in today's press release and our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

我們對您的問題的評論和回應僅反映管理層截至今天（2022 年 10 月 27 日）的觀點，並包含前瞻性陳述。實際結果可能存在重大差異。有關可能影響我們財務表現的因素的其他資訊包含在今天的新聞稿和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中，包括我們最近的 10-K 表年度報告和後續文件。

During this call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in our press release, slides accompanying this webcast and our filings with the SEC, each of which is posted on our IR website. You will find additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of these measures with comparable GAAP measures.

在本次電話會議中，我們可能會在新聞稿、本次網路廣播的幻燈片以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中討論某些非公認會計準則財務指標，這些指標均發佈在我們的 IR 網站上。您將發現這些非 GAAP 指標的更多揭露，包括這些指標與可比較 GAAP 指標的對帳。

Our guidance incorporates the order trends that we've seen to date and what we believe today to be appropriate assumptions. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, including uncertainty regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; fluctuations in foreign exchange rates; changes in global economic and geopolitical conditions; and customer demand and spending, including the impact of recessionary fears, inflation, interest rates, regional labor market and global supply chain constraints, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce and cloud services and the various factors detailed in our filings with the SEC.

我們的指導考慮到了我們迄今為止看到的訂單趨勢以及我們今天認為合適的假設。我們的結果本質上是不可預測的，並且可能受到許多因素的重大影響，包括對 COVID-19 大流行影響的不確定性；外匯匯率波動；全球經濟和地緣政治條件的變化；以及客戶需求和支出，包括經濟衰退的擔憂、通貨膨脹、利率、區域勞動力市場和全球供應鏈限制、世界事件、互聯網、線上商務和雲端服務的增長率以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中詳述的各種因素的影響。

This guidance also reflects our estimates to date regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, including those discussed in our filings with the SEC. Our guidance also assumes, among other things, that we don't conclude any additional business acquisitions, restructurings or legal settlements. It's not possible to accurately predict demand for our goods and services, and therefore, our actual results could differ materially from our guidance.

該指引也反映了我們迄今為止對 COVID-19 疫情對我們營運的影響的估計，包括我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中討論的影響。我們的指導還假設，除其他事項外，我們不會完成任何額外的業務收購、重組或法律和解。我們無法準確預測對我們的商品和服務的需求，因此，我們的實際結果可能與我們的指導有重大差異。

And now I'll turn the call over to Brian.

現在我將電話轉給布萊恩。

Thank you for joining today's call. Before we move to questions, I will make some comments about our Q3 performance and the outlook for Q4.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。在我們開始提問之前，我將對我們第三季的表現和第四季的展望發表一些評論。

For the third quarter, worldwide net sales were $127.1 billion, representing an increase of 19% year-over-year, excluding approximately 460 basis points of unfavorable impact from changes in foreign exchange rates. As the dollar continued to strengthen during the quarter, the foreign exchange impact was higher than the 390 basis point impact we had incorporated into our Q3 guidance. This represents a headwind of approximately $900 million, more than we initially guided to.

第三季度，全球淨銷售額為 1,271 億美元，年增 19%，不包括約 460 個基點的不利匯率變動影響。由於美元在本季持續走強，外匯影響高於我們在第三季指引中納入的 390 個基點的影響。這意味著約 9 億美元的逆風，比我們最初預期的還要多。

Throughout the quarter, our worldwide stores business continued to stay highly focused on our customers and driving the inputs that matter most, which helped to accelerate sales growth in the quarter. We now offer our widest selection ever. We've taken actions that have driven strong recovery of in-stock rates, and we continue to work on improving delivery speeds, all while ensuring our pricing remains sharp for our customers.

整個季度，我們的全球門市業務繼續高度關注客戶並推動最重要的投入，這有助於加速本季的銷售成長。我們現在提供迄今為止最廣泛的選擇。我們已採取行動推動庫存率強勁回升，並持續致力於提高交貨速度，同時確保我們的價格對客戶保持優惠。

Third-party sellers and the products they offer remain an important strength of our offering for consumers, representing 58% of total paid units sold in Q3, the highest percentage ever. It's up from 56% in Q3 of last year. And we're working with these partners, most of whom are small- and medium-sized businesses, to build an even stronger offering. We recently hosted Amazon Accelerate, our U.S. conference for selling partners, where we introduced new tools, including new e-mail marketing capabilities, free-to-use shipping software that offers discounted shipping rates and new features and analytics to help sellers better understand and act on conversion-driving content.

第三方賣家及其提供的產品仍然是我們為消費者提供服務的重要優勢，佔第三季銷售的總付費單位的 58%，創歷史新高。這一數字比去年第三季的 56% 有所上升。我們正在與這些合作夥伴（其中大多數是中小型企業）合作，以創造更強大的產品。我們最近主辦了銷售合作夥伴的美國會議 Amazon Accelerate，在會上我們推出了新工具，包括新的電子郵件行銷功能、提供折扣運費的免費運輸軟體以及新功能和分析功能，以幫助賣家更好地理解和採取行動，推動轉換。

This was a big quarter for Prime members. We celebrated our eighth Prime Day in July, which contributed approximately 400 basis points to our Q3 year-over-year sales growth rate. Prime members purchased more than 300 million items worldwide, making it the biggest Prime Day net sales event in Amazon's history. As a reminder, Prime Day occurred in the second quarter of 2021.

對於 Prime 會員來說，這是一個重要的季度。我們於 7 月慶祝了第八個 Prime Day，這為我們第三季的年比銷售成長率貢獻了約 400 個基點。 Prime 會員在全球購買了超過 3 億件商品，這是亞馬遜史上最大的 Prime Day 淨銷售活動。提醒一下，Prime Day 發生在 2021 年第二季。

We also debuted the 2 largest Prime Video releases ever. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power attracted more than 25 million global viewers on its first day. And in the first 2 months since its launch, Rings of Power has driven more Prime sign-ups globally than any other Amazon Original. NFL Thursday Night Football also premiered in September, averaging more than 15 million viewers during its first broadcast, and driving the 3 biggest hours of U.S. Prime sign-ups in the history of Amazon. Our next broadcast, the seventh of the 15-game schedule, kicks off in a few hours, with the Ravens visiting the Buccaneers.

我們還推出了有史以來最大的兩部 Prime Video 版本。 《魔戒：權力之戒》上映第一天就吸引了全球超過 2,500 萬觀眾。自推出後的前兩個月，《權力之環》在全球吸引的 Prime 註冊用戶數量超過了任何其他亞馬遜原創作品。 NFL 週四橄欖球之夜也於 9 月首播，首次播出時平均有超過 1500 萬觀眾觀看，並創下了亞馬遜歷史上美國 Prime 註冊時長最長的 3 小時。我們的下一場比賽是 15 場比賽中的第七場，將在幾個小時後開始，烏鴉隊將對陣海盜隊。

We also saw good growth in our advertising offerings where sales grew 30% year-over-year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange as vendors and sellers have embraced our portfolio of products, which allow advertisers to build general awareness and/or drive sales of a specific product.

我們的廣告產品也取得了良好的成長，銷售額年增 30％，不包括外匯的影響，因為供應商和賣家已經接受了我們的產品組合，這使廣告商能夠建立普遍知名度和/或推動特定產品的銷售。

In AWS, net sales increased to $20.5 billion in Q3, up 28% year-over-year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange, and now representing an annualized sales run rate of $82 billion. With the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties, we've seen an uptick in AWS customers focused on controlling costs. And we're proactively working to help customers cost optimize, just as we've done throughout AWS' history, especially in periods of economic uncertainty. The breadth and depth of our service offerings enable us to help them do things like move storage to lower-priced tiers options and shift workloads to our Graviton chips.

AWS 第三季淨銷售額增至 205 億美元，年增 28%，不包括外匯影響，目前年化銷售額運行率為 820 億美元。隨著宏觀經濟不確定性的持續存在，我們看到注重控製成本的 AWS 客戶數量增加。我們正在積極努力幫助客戶優化成本，就像我們在 AWS 的歷史上所做的那樣，尤其是在經濟不確定時期。我們提供的服務的廣度和深度使我們能夠幫助他們完成一些工作，例如將儲存轉移到價格較低的層級選項以及將工作負載轉移到我們的 Graviton 晶片。

Graviton3 processors delivered 40% better price performance than comparable x86-based instances. And our teams across AWS continue to work relentlessly to expand that breadth and depth, including recent launches of new EC2 machine learning training instances in AWS IoT fleet-wise. And we continue to expand the AWS infrastructure footprint to support customers with the launch of the AWS Middle East region in August and the recent announcement to launch AWS Asia Pacific region in Thailand.

Graviton3 處理器的性價比比同類基於 x86 的執行個體高出 40%。我們在 AWS 的團隊繼續不懈地拓展這種廣度和深度，包括最近在 AWS IoT 佇列中推出新的 EC2 機器學習訓練執行個體。我們繼續擴大 AWS 基礎設施覆蓋範圍以支援客戶，並於 8 月推出了 AWS 中東區域，最近又宣佈在泰國推出 AWS 亞太區域。

Now let's shift to operating income. During the quarter, we reported $2.5 billion in operating income. Turning first to our North America and international segments, during the quarter, we generated over $1 billion in operations cost improvements driven by higher leverage of our fixed cost base and continued productivity improvements in our fulfillment and transportation networks. This represents a solid improvement in productivity quarter-over-quarter, though not quite as much as we had planned. We are encouraged by the progress made during the quarter, but we recognize there's still a lot of opportunity to continue to improve productivity and drive cost efficiencies throughout our networks. We have identified initiatives that the teams continue to work hard on, and we expect to see further improvement in the quarters ahead.

現在我們來談談營業收入。本季度，我們報告的營業收入為 25 億美元。首先談到我們的北美和國際部門，在本季度，我們實現了超過 10 億美元的營運成本改善，這得益於我們固定成本基礎的更高槓桿率以及我們的履行和運輸網路的生產力持續提高。儘管沒有達到我們計劃的水平，但這表明生產力比上一季有了穩步提高。我們對本季的進展感到鼓舞，但我們意識到仍有許多機會繼續提高生產力並提高整個網路的成本效率。我們已經確定了團隊需要繼續努力的舉措，並期望在未來幾季看到進一步的改善。

Another impact to operating income was the step-up in Prime Video content and marketing costs in Q3, primarily driven by the global premiere of the Rings of Power and the launch of the NFL Thursday Night Football package in the United States. Our results were also negatively impacted by nonrecurring charges related to the closure of certain businesses and products such as Amazon Care, Fabric.com and Amazon Explore.

對營業收入的另一個影響是第三季 Prime Video 內容和行銷成本的增加，這主要受到《權力之環》全球首映和 NFL 週四夜間足球套餐在美國推出的影響。與 Amazon Care、Fabric.com 和 Amazon Explore 等某些業務和產品的關閉相關的非經常性費用也對我們的業績產生了負面影響。

We continue to ramp up our investments in AWS, adding product builders and sales and professional services headcount to help customers save money, invent more quickly in their businesses and transition to the cloud. We're also continuing to invest in new infrastructure to meet capacity needs, expanding to new geographic regions, developing new services and iterating quickly to enhance existing services.

我們持續增加對 AWS 的投資，增加產品製造商、銷售和專業服務人員，以協助客戶節省金錢、更快地進行業務創新並過渡到雲端。我們也將繼續投資新的基礎設施以滿足容量需求，擴展到新的地理區域，開發新服務並快速迭代以增強現有服務。

Overall stock-based compensation expense was $5.6 billion in Q3, up from $5.2 billion in the second quarter. This increase was primarily driven by a reduction in the estimated forfeiture rate on certain unvested stock awards.

第三季整體股票薪資支出為 56 億美元，高於第二季的 52 億美元。這一增長主要是由於某些未歸屬股票獎勵的預期沒收率下降所致。

We reported overall net income of $2.9 billion in the third quarter. While we primarily focus our comments on operating income, I'd point out that this net income includes a pretax valuation gain of $1.1 billion included in nonoperating income from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive. As we've noted in recent quarters, the impact of this investment to our income statement is driven by quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in Rivian's stock price.

我們報告第三季的整體淨收入為 29 億美元。雖然我們的評論主要關注營業收入，但我要指出的是，該淨收入包括 11 億美元的稅前估值收益，該收益包含在對 Rivian Automotive 普通股投資的非營業收入中。正如我們最近幾季所指出的，這項投資對我們的損益表的影響是由 Rivian 股價的季度波動所驅動的。

Now let's discuss capital investments, which is the combination of CapEx plus equipment finance leases. For the full year 2022, we expect to incur approximately $60 billion in capital investments, which is broadly in line with what we spent in 2021. This represents an estimated reduction in fulfillment and transportation capital investments of approximately $10 billion compared to last year as we've continued to moderate our build expectations to better align with demand. And this is offset by an approximately $10 billion year-over-year increase in technology infrastructure, primarily to support the rapid growth, innovation and continued expansion of our AWS footprint.

現在讓我們討論一下資本投資，即資本支出加上設備融資租賃的組合。就 2022 年全年而言，我們預計將投入約 600 億美元的資本投資，與 2021 年的支出大致相當。同時，技術基礎設施的年成長約為 100 億美元，這主要是為了支援我們 AWS 業務的快速成長、創新和持續擴張。

We also provided our fourth quarter financial guidance as part of our earnings release. While we are encouraged by our progress across the business, macroeconomic environment remains challenging worldwide. The continuing impacts of broad-scale inflation, heightened fuel prices and rising energy costs have impacted our sales growth as consumers assess their purchasing power and organizations of all sizes evaluate their technology and advertising spend.

作為收益報告的一部分，我們也提供了第四季的財務指引。雖然我們對整個業務的進展感到鼓舞，但全球宏觀經濟環境仍充滿挑戰。隨著消費者評估其購買力，各種規模的組織評估其技術和廣告支出，大規模通貨膨脹、燃料價格上漲和能源成本上升的持續影響已經影響到我們的銷售成長。

As the third quarter progressed, we saw moderating sales growth across many of our businesses as well as the increased foreign currency headwinds I mentioned earlier, and we expect these impacts to persist throughout the fourth quarter. As we've done at similar times in our history, we're also taking actions to tighten our belt, including pausing hiring in certain businesses and winding down products and services where we believe our resources are better spent elsewhere. We aim to strike the right balance between investing for our customers for the long term while driving operational efficiency improvements and accomplishing more with less.

隨著第三季的進展，我們看到許多業務的銷售成長放緩，而且我之前提到的外匯逆風也加大了，我們預計這些影響將持續整個第四季。正如我們在歷史上類似時期所做的那樣，我們也在採取措施勒緊褲腰帶，包括暫停某些業務的招聘，以及逐步淘汰我們認為可以更好地將資源用在其他地方的產品和服務。我們的目標是在為客戶進行長期投資與提高營運效率以及用更少的投入實現更多成果之間取得適當的平衡。

When faced with an uncertain economy or some kind of discontinuous event, customers tend to double-down on companies that they believe have the best customer experience and that take care of them the best. And that is where our efforts remain focused. As we head into the fourth quarter, we are ready to make this a great holiday season for our customers. We kicked off the season a few weeks ago with our first-ever Prime Early Access sales event where tens of millions of Prime members shopped and ordered more than 100 million items from Amazon's selling partners. We remain heads-down focused on driving a fantastic customer experience, and we believe putting customers first is the only reliable way to create lasting value for shareholders.

當面臨不確定的經濟或某種不連續事件時，客戶往往會選擇那些他們認為擁有最佳客戶體驗和為他們提供最佳服務的公司。這也正是我們努力的重點。隨著我們進入第四季度，我們已準備好為客戶打造一個美好的假期。幾週前，我們舉辦了首屆 Prime Early Access 銷售活動，拉開了本季的序幕，數千萬 Prime 會員從亞馬遜的銷售合作夥伴處購物並訂購了超過 1 億件商品。我們始終全心全意致力於提供卓越的客戶體驗，並堅信客戶至上是為股東創造持久價值的唯一可靠方式。

Thanks. And with that, let's move on to your questions.

謝謝。現在，我們來回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs.

（操作員指示）我們的第一個問題來自高盛的 Eric Sheridan。

Brian, maybe I'll just ask a 2-parter with respect to the revenue guide for Q4. Can you help us better understand some of the comments you made around the exit velocity, specifically with respect to the U.S. e-commerce business or the AWS business and how that might inform some of the lower-than-seasonal trends that seem to be implied in the Q4 guide, specifically with respect to either optimizations on the AWS side or changes in consumption behavior on the U.S. e-commerce side?

布萊恩，也許我會就第四季的收入指南問兩個問題。您能否幫助我們更好地理解您對退出速度所做的一些評論，特別是關於美國電子商務業務或 AWS 業務的評論，以及這可能會如何影響第四季度指南中似乎暗示的一些低於季節性的趨勢，特別是關於 AWS 方面的優化或美國電子商務方面的消費行為變化？

Sure thing, Eric. Thanks for your question. As I look ahead to guidance for Q4, I think the biggest individual factor is still going to be foreign exchange. This guidance includes 460 basis points of unfavorable impact year-over-year. FX is a bigger issue for us on our revenue growth in dollars than it is on our income. It actually has a slight favorability due to the investments we're making internationally. But put that aside for a moment.

當然可以，艾瑞克。感謝您的提問。展望第四季的業績指引，我認為最大的單獨因素仍然是外匯。該指引包括同比 460 個基點的不利影響。外匯對於我們美元收入成長的影響比對我們的收入的影響更大。由於我們在國際上進行的投資，它實際上具有輕微的有利因素。但是，我們先把這個放在一邊。

What we saw in Q3 was a really strong July with a great reaction to Prime Day globally. And the resumption of things like in-stock rates are starting to come back, and delivery speed was coming back. And that continued through the quarter, but growth rates started to slow a bit. And primarily in the consumer stores business, it was in international. North America, obviously, it was strong, but it started to slow a bit. But it was mostly in international where we saw the biggest impact, and we think that is tied to a tougher recessionary environment there. Compared to the U.S., it's worse in Europe right now. The Ukraine war and the energy crisis issues have really compounded in that geography.

我們看到，7 月第三季的表現非常強勁，全球對 Prime Day 的反應非常熱烈。庫存率等都開始恢復，送貨速度也回升。這種狀況持續了整個季度，但成長率開始放緩。它主要從事消費品商店業務，並且是國際性的。北美顯然很強勁，但已經開始放緩了。但我們看到最嚴重的影響主要是國際影響，我們認為這與那裡更嚴峻的經濟衰退環境有關。與美國相比，歐洲目前的情況更糟。烏克蘭戰爭和能源危機問題在該地區進一步加劇。

But when I talk about enterprise customers in AWS, yes, we've been working with customers to lower their bills. Just like all companies, they want to lower their spend when they're faced with uncertainty in the market. I would say one that's real valuable points about cloud computing is that it's turning fixed cost into variable for many of our customers, and we help them save money either through alternative services or Graviton3 chips. There's many ways that we have to help them lower their spending and still get great cost performance ratios.

但當我談到 AWS 的企業客戶時，是的，我們一直在與客戶合作降低他們的帳單。就像所有公司一樣，當他們面臨市場不確定性時，他們都希望降低支出。我想說雲端運算真正有價值的一點是，它將許多客戶的固定成本轉化為可變成本，我們透過替代服務或 Graviton3 晶片幫助他們節省資金。我們有許多方法來幫助他們降低開支，同時仍獲得較高的性價比。

So what we're really excited about the business, both in the long term and even in the short run, you noticed we've added $4.5 billion to the $16 billion base we had of revenue last Q3, so the business is growing in absolute dollars at a really good clip. We do see some of the consumers are cutting their budgets and trying to save money in the short run. I would say that although we had a 28% growth rate for the quarter for AWS, the back end of the quarter, we were more in the mid-20% growth rate. So we've carried that forecast through to the fourth quarter. We're not sure how it's going to play out, but that's generally our assumption.

因此，我們對這項業務真正感到興奮的是，無論是從長期還是短期來看，您注意到我們在上一季 160 億美元的收入基礎上又增加了 45 億美元，因此業務的絕對金額正在以非常好的速度增長。我們確實看到一些消費者正在削減預算並試圖在短期內省錢。我想說的是，儘管本季 AWS 的成長率為 28%，但在本季末，我們的成長率更多地在 20% 左右。因此我們將該預測延續到第四季。我們不確定事情會如何發展，但這通常是我們的假設。

We're excited about the re:Invent conference that's coming up in late November. We expect to have over 40,000 people in Las Vegas and many more tuning in virtually. So continue to drive value for customers with new products, new services and, lately also, additional ways for them to manage their budgets and optimize in what is shaping up as a tough economy.

我們對即將於 11 月底舉行的 re:Invent 大會感到非常興奮。我們預計將有超過 40,000 名觀眾來到拉斯維加斯，並且會有更多觀眾透過虛擬方式觀看。因此，我們要繼續透過新產品、新服務為客戶創造價值，並且最近還為客戶提供額外的方式管理預算，並在嚴峻的經濟狀況下進行最佳化。

Our next question is from Doug Anmuth with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Doug Anmuth。

Brian, free cash flow generation has always been Amazon's focus in the past, but that went negative last year and likely this year as well. Can you just talk about the path to restoring meaningful free cash flow? And do you think that CapEx tied to data centers and the AWS ramp can ultimately step back, similar to what we've seen recently with fulfillment and transport?

布萊恩，自由現金流的產生一直是亞馬遜過去關注的重點，但去年的情況是負面的，今年也可能如此。您能談談恢復有意義的自由現金流的途徑嗎？您是否認為與資料中心和 AWS 成長相關的資本支出最終會有所回落，就像我們最近在訂單履行和運輸方面看到的情況一樣？

Yes. I think if you look at our free cash flow, there's multiple factors here. One is the drop-off in income for the trailing 12 months versus the 12 months before it, and a lot of that is driven to things that we've talked about on these calls. Ops cost, our network doubled over the last 2.5 years. While we're making strides in productivity and network optimization, we still have work to do there. So we have to get our cost structure back to pre-pandemic levels in a lot of areas of the company and mostly in operations.

是的。我認為，如果你看看我們的自由現金流，你會發現這裡有多個因素。一是過去 12 個月的收入與之前 12 個月相比有所下降，這在很大程度上是由我們在電話會議中討論到的問題造成的。營運成本，我們的網路在過去的 2.5 年裡翻了一番。雖然我們在提高生產力和網路優化方面取得了長足進步，但我們仍有工作要做。因此，我們必須將公司許多領域（主要是營運領域）的成本結構恢復到疫情前的水準。

There's a unique thing going on with inventory right now because we have a lot of weeks of cover mainly due to supply chain issues coming out of Asia primarily and we're seeing with our sellers, too. We just have additional weeks of cover. We think our model reacts quickly to customer demand. This is more about the other side of the equation, the supply chain and having more in stock. So what the issue there is that we generally have a favorable working capital impact from accounts payable that is more days than our inventory. That's been flipping the last year, and we expect that to normalize as we move into 2023.

目前庫存狀況比較特殊，因為我們有許多週的庫存，這主要是因為來自亞洲的供應鏈問題，我們的賣家也遇到了同樣的問題。我們只是有額外幾週的保障。我們認為我們的模型可以快速回應客戶需求。這更多涉及等式的另一邊，即供應鏈和更多的庫存。那麼問題在於，我們通常會因應付帳款週轉天數多於庫存而獲得有利的營運資本影響。去年這種情況發生了變化，我們預計到 2023 年將恢復正常。

And then CapEx is a big driver. We had, again, a doubling of the network, had very high CapEx the last 2 years. You'll see that we've lowered CapEx year-over-year. We probably cut about 1/3 of our budget from what we originally thought for 2022 while still focusing our capital dollars really on the AWS business and increasing customer demand or capacity for increasing customer demand in our stores business.

然後資本支出是一個重要的驅動因素。過去兩年，我們的網路規模再次翻了一番，資本支出也非常高。您會發現我們的資本支出較去年同期降低。我們可能會將 2022 年的預算削減約 1/3，同時仍將我們的資本重點放在 AWS 業務上，並增加客戶需求或增加我們商店業務的客戶需求的能力。

So we're working hard on all those dimensions. And we expect, as we see a recovery in income generation, normalization of the inventory versus accounts payable cycle and efficiency in our CapEx spend, we intend to flip those numbers around.

所以我們正在所有這些方面努力工作。我們預計，隨著收入創造的復甦、庫存與應付帳款週期的正常化以及資本支出效率的提高，我們打算扭轉這些數字。

And our next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney with Evercore.

我們的下一個問題來自 Evercore 的 Mark Mahaney。

Let me ask 2 profit questions. AWS margins were a little lower than we would have thought. Is that just a reflection of the full quarter impact of that kind of stock-based compensation granted to those employees earlier in the year? Is that the new normal for AWS margins? And then international losses also were a little bit heavier than we thought, just talk about what drove those losses. And is that also the new normal for that segment?

我問2個關於利潤的問題。 AWS 利潤率比我們想像的要低一些。這是否僅僅反映了今年稍早向這些員工提供的股票薪酬對整個季度的影響？這是 AWS 利潤的新常態嗎？然後國際損失也比我們想像的要嚴重一些，談談造成這些損失的原因。這也是該領域的新常態嗎？

Sure. Let me start with AWS. So we did see a deceleration or a drop in op margin sequentially quarter-over-quarter. The broad disclaimer on AWS margins is that they will fluctuate over time as we balance investments versus renegotiating pricing with the long-term customer commitments, all as headwinds to the business, offset by increasing productivity and efficiencies in our data centers, which drive profitability. So there's moving parts there.

當然。讓我從 AWS 開始。因此，我們確實看到營業利潤率較上月下降。關於 AWS 利潤率的廣泛免責聲明是，隨著我們平衡投資與根據長期客戶承諾重新協商價格，利潤率將隨著時間的推移而波動，所有這些都會給業務帶來阻力，但通過提高我們數據中心的生產力和效率來抵消這些阻力，從而提高盈利能力。因此那裡有活動部件。

I'd say what's happening lately is, yes, the stock-based comp. We have seen inflation in our wages this year and particularly on our [Czech] employees is heavily concentrated in AWS. So that's one element of it. We're also seeing energy costs that are materially higher than they had in pre-pandemic, electricity and the impact of natural gas pricing. So those prices have up more than 2x over the last couple of years and contribute to about 200 basis point degradation versus 2 years ago. So we're fighting through some of that as well, which is a new thing for the AWS business. But we'll continue to look for ways to optimize our operations to use less energy. And as we scale, we'll outrun that growth trajectory.

我想說的是，最近發生的是基於股票的補償。今年我們的薪資出現了上漲，尤其是我們（捷克）員工的薪資上漲，主要集中在 AWS 上。這是其中一個要素。我們也看到能源成本大幅高於疫情之前，電力和天然氣定價也帶來了影響。因此，這些價格在過去幾年中上漲了 2 倍多，與 2 年前相比下降了約 200 個基點。因此，我們也在努力解決其中的一些問題，這對 AWS 業務來說是一件新事情。但我們將繼續尋找方法來優化我們的營運以減少能源消耗。隨著我們規模的擴大，我們將超越這一成長軌跡。

On international, international is always a mix of profitability in more established countries of Europe and Japan, offset by emerging countries and investments in Prime benefits. I think the biggest issue quarter-over-quarter, the increase in losses versus Q2 was tied to some additional operating costs in Europe. We've seen higher fuel costs there, even more certainly in the United States. And Prime Day always has lesser profitability because there's just a lot of deals. And it's a bit of margin from Prime Day in both North America and international. A big part of that is device sales. And again, we sell a lot of devices during our Prime Day events. We don't make money on the device. We make money on the use of the device. So that always can end up hurting profitability in the quarter. So there are some contributing things.

在國際方面，國際始終是歐洲和日本等較成熟國家的獲利組合，抵消了新興國家和對 Prime 福利的投資。我認為季度環比最大的問題是，與第二季度相比虧損的增加與歐洲的一些額外營運成本有關。我們發現那裡的燃料成本上漲，美國的燃料成本更高。而且 Prime Day 的獲利能力總是較低，因為交易太多。這與北美和國際上的 Prime Day 相比都有一些差距。其中很大一部分是設備銷售。我們再次在 Prime Day 活動期間銷售了很多設備。我們不會靠該設備賺錢。我們透過使用該設備來賺錢。因此，這最終總會損害該季度的獲利能力。因此有一些有貢獻的事。

As far as new normal, we're working very hard to make sure that current profitability is not the new normal, and we'll see how quickly we can make improvements. A lot of the improvements that I talked about on a macro level, capital efficiency, operations improvements are as important internationally as they are in North America.

就新常態而言，我們正在努力確保當前的獲利能力不是新常態，我們將看看我們能夠多快做出改進。我在宏觀層面上談到的許多改進、資本效率、營運改善在國際和北美同樣重要。

And our next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Brent Thill。

Brian, on AWS, I'm just curious when you talk about optimizing and efficiency, can you talk to what you're seeing from your customers why perhaps you're seeing such a big pullback in terms of near-term demand? How would you characterize those conversations? And I think the other question is related to backlog. Backlog has been running 60-plus percent, so the divergence between revenue and backlog is pretty large. Everyone's asking, how do you describe that divergence?

Brian，關於 AWS，我很好奇，當您談到最佳化和效率時，您能否談談您從客戶那裡看到的情況，為什麼您會看到短期需求出現如此大的回落？您如何描述這些對話？我認為另一個問題與積壓有關。積壓訂單量已達到60%以上，因此收入和積壓訂單量之間的差距相當大。每個人都在問，如何描述這種差異？

Let me have David answer the backlog question first.

讓我先讓大衛回答一下積壓問題。

Yes. It's Dave here. So I think our current backlog balance for Q3 is $104 billion. So it's about a little less than 60%, I think about 57% up year-over-year. And the new customer pipeline is healthy. I think with a lot of enterprises and customers, they're continuing to put plans in place. I think Brian will talk a little bit about some of the cost optimization in a second. Backlog growth, this figure, it can fluctuate quarter-to-quarter because it is, dependent on the commitments that you sign in the period and how those adjust but, yes, $104.3 billion for the end of Q3.

是的。我是戴夫。所以我認為我們第三季的當前積壓餘額是 1040 億美元。所以大概是略低於 60%，我認為比去年同期成長約 57%。新客戶通路也很健康。我認為許多企業和客戶正在繼續實施計劃。我想 Brian 馬上就會談一些成本優化方面的事情。積壓訂單成長，這個數字，可能會逐季度波動，因為它取決於你在此期間簽署的承諾以及這些承諾如何調整，但沒錯，第三季末的數字是 1043 億美元。

Yes. And your first question about cost optimization, first, there are some industries that have lower demand that's showing up in our volumes as probably like other companies as well, things like financial services, the mortgage business being down, cryptocurrencies being down. We're very strong in some of those industries, and that's part of it. But basically, what we see is customers are looking to save money versus their committed spend. We have options for them to do that. They can manage workloads better. They can switch to lower-cost products that have different performance profiles. They can switch to Graviton chips that have higher cost performance ratios. So all really good things for the customer and for Amazon long term.

是的。關於成本優化的第一個問題，首先，有些行業的需求較低，這在我們的交易量中有所體現，可能與其他公司的情況一樣，例如金融服務、抵押貸款業務下滑、加密貨幣下滑。我們在其中一些行業非常強大，這是部分原因。但基本上，我們看到的是客戶希望節省與其承諾支出相關的錢。我們為他們提供了實現這一目標的選擇。他們可以更好地管理工作量。他們可以轉而使用具有不同性能特徵的低成本產品。他們可以轉用性價比更高的Graviton晶片。因此，從長遠來看，這對客戶和亞馬遜來說都是好事。

Again, we think the benefit of cloud computing is really showing up right now because we allow customers to turn what can normally be a fixed expense into a variable expense, and they can let us manage the highs and lows of inflation and other cost of electricity and everything else. And they can get about to do their business using our services in a very highly secure way.

再次，我們認為雲端運算的好處現在才真正顯現出來，因為我們允許客戶將通常的固定支出轉變為可變支出，並且他們可以讓我們管理通貨膨脹的高低以及其他電力成本和其他一切成本。他們可以以高度安全的方式使用我們的服務來開展業務。

So I think just like in 2020, these time periods are good for long-term adoption on cloud computing. But the offset in the short run is that some companies have demand that drops. I think what was different in 2020 was there were companies that went down and there's companies that went up quite a bit that were servicing high volumes during the pandemic. So that dynamic is not in place right now, and I think everyone is just cautious and they want to, again, watch their spend. And as CFO, I appreciate that, and we're doing the same thing here at Amazon.

因此我認為就像 2020 年一樣，這些時間段有利於雲端運算的長期採用。但短期的抵銷作用是部分企業的需求下降。我認為 2020 年的不同之處在於，有些公司股價下跌，有些公司股價上漲幅度很大，因為它們在疫情期間服務量很大。所以這種動態現在還沒有實現，我認為每個人都很謹慎，他們想再次觀察自己的支出。身為財務官，我對此表示讚賞，我們在亞馬遜也在做同樣的事情。

And our next question comes from the line of John Blackledge with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Cowen 公司的約翰·布萊克利奇 (John Blackledge)。

Two questions. First, could you provide some more details on the cost structure initiatives and when we could see those initiatives hitting the P&L? And then second, on the holiday season. It's a bit implicit in your guide and remarks thus far, but just curious of your expectations for consumer demand this holiday season versus last year.

兩個問題。首先，您能否提供更多有關成本結構措施的細節，以及何時我們可以看到這些措施對損益表產生影響？第二，關於假期。您迄今為止的指南和評論中有些隱晦，但我只是好奇您對今年假期季節與去年相比的消費需求的預期。

Sure. Let me start with the holiday. So we're ready to roll. We've got the best selection we've ever had. In-stock levels are really high. Delivery speeds are getting very close to where we want them to be. And we're ready to have a really good holiday season with our consumers this year. And the Prime Early Access sale, I think, created great value for consumers. It allowed them to get a jump on some of their purchases for the holiday and also just find some great deals. So we're happy with that effort. And the teams that put that together worked very hard this year to hold 2 large Prime events within 4 months.

當然。讓我先從假期說起。所以我們準備好了。我們擁有迄今為止最好的選擇。庫存量確實很高。運送速度已經非常接近我們期望的速度了。今年，我們已經準備好與消費者一起度過一個愉快的節日季節。我認為 Prime Early Access 促銷為消費者創造了巨大的價值。這讓他們能夠在節日期間提前購買一些物品，也能找到一些很划算的商品。所以我們對此努力感到滿意。今年，組織這些活動的團隊非常努力，在 4 個月內舉辦了兩場大型 Prime 活動。

So we're very optimistic about the holiday. But we're realistic that there's various factors weighing on people's wallets, and we're not quite sure how strong holiday spending will be versus last year. And we're ready for a variety of outcomes. But we know the consumers when they're looking for good deals, and that positions us well. Advertisers are looking for effective advertising. And our advertising is at the point where consumers are ready to spend. So we have a lot of advantages that we feel that will help both consumers and also our partners like sellers and advertisers. So the seller in-stock is very high. We've had great in stocks from our FBA sellers. And so we're ready to go. And we're very optimistic about the fourth quarter, just realistic about whether we may have a range of outcomes that we just have to be ready for when we are.

因此，我們對這個假期非常樂觀。但我們也很現實地認識到，有各種各樣的因素影響著人們的錢包，而且我們不太確定假日消費與去年相比會有多強勁。我們已經做好了迎接各種結果的準備。但我們知道消費者何時在尋找好交易，這讓我們處於有利地位。廣告商正在尋找有效的廣告。我們的廣告正瞄準消費者願意消費的那個點。因此，我們有許多優勢，我們認為這些優勢不僅能幫助消費者，還能幫助我們的合作夥伴，如賣家和廣告商。所以賣家庫存很高。我們的 FBA 賣家庫存充足。我們準備出發了。我們對第四季非常樂觀，但我們對可能出現的一系列結果也持現實態度，我們只是必須做好準備。

On the cost structure initiatives, I think you're primarily talking about the operations world. There's 3 large buckets there, as I've said in the past, productivity, fixed cost leverage and inflation. On productivity, made good strides, but there's still a lot of work to do there and we know the job ahead of us. It's hard to improve productivity much in the fourth quarter because it's just a period of like maximum stress on the operations, and we're trying to fulfill every order in a very quick way. But our goal is to leave ourselves in a really good, strong condition for a fast start on a lot of initiatives in Q1 of next year.

關於成本結構舉措，我認為您主要談論的是營運領域。正如我過去所說的那樣，這裡有三個大桶，即生產力、固定成本槓桿和通貨膨脹。在生產力方面，我們取得了長足的進步，但仍有許多工作要做，我們也知道眼前的任務是什麼。第四季很難大幅提高生產力，因為這是營運壓力最大的時期，我們正試圖以非常快的方式完成每一份訂單。但我們的目標是讓自己保持良好、強勁的狀態，以便在明年第一季快速啟動許多計劃。

On fixed cost leverage, we've taken steps to alter our forward plan and take CapEx out. A lot of the CapEx we spend in any given year is feeding future years' capability. And we've tightened that up. We feel good about the arc of demand versus supply that we have in our fulfillment and transportation area. Inflation is a wildcard. We do as much as we can to save money in an inflationary environment. We've looked to make sure that our trucks are fully utilized as best we can, preventing long-zone shipments, things that like use a lot of fuel or use a lot of trucking or use a lot of shipments from other parts of the world.

在固定成本槓桿方面，我們已採取措施改變我們的前瞻性計劃並取消資本支出。我們每年花費的資本支出大多是為了未來幾年的產能。我們已經加強了這個限制。我們對訂單履行和運輸領域的供需曲線感到滿意。通貨膨脹是一個不確定因素。在通貨膨脹的環境中，我們盡可能地節省金錢。我們盡力確保我們的卡車得到充分利用，避免長距離運輸，例如消耗大量燃料、使用大量卡車或使用大量來自世界其他地區的貨物。

So we're working under the umbrella of not having it impact the customer. We're working very hard to save that. Those challenges will be there through the end of the year, and we'll be working on them definitely in the first half of next year as well. So we'll keep you posted as we have these quarterly calls on our progress and where we see opportunities.

因此，我們的工作是避免對客戶造成影響。我們正在努力挽救這一點。這些挑戰將持續到今年年底，我們明年上半年也一定會努力應對這些挑戰。因此，我們會在季度電話會議上向您通報我們的進展以及我們看到的機會。

And our final question will come from the line of Ross Sandler with Barclays.

我們的最後一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的羅斯桑德勒 (Ross Sandler)。

Just 2 clarifications on what you just said. So first, on retail, you did see some good efficiency gains in 3Q, and you talked about $1.5 billion. As we look forward, if those 3 areas you just mentioned do turn favorable, how quickly do you think you could get back to kind of historical North America retail operating margins? Is that 1 year, 2 years? Any time frame on that? And then on AWS, you said the back half of 3Q was a mid-20s run rate. One of your prominent peers was talking about incremental macro weakness in 4Q. So could you just talk about, are you expecting the same thing in 4Q? Or are some of the price concessions you already made in 3Q kind of getting in front of that?

對您剛才所說的話，我只想澄清兩點。首先，在零售方面，您確實看到第三季效率有所提升，而且您談到了 15 億美元。展望未來，如果您剛才提到的這 3 個領域確實出現利好，您認為您多快能夠恢復到北美零售營業利潤率的歷史水平？那是 1 年還是 2 年？有時間框架嗎？然後在 AWS 上，您說第三季後半段的運行率達到了 25% 左右。您的一位傑出的同行正在談論第四季度宏觀經濟的增量疲軟。那麼您能談談嗎，您是否預期第四季也會出現同樣的情況？或者您在第三季已經做出的一些價格優惠是否會對此產生影響？

Was that second question on AWS, Ross?

羅斯，第二個問題是關於 AWS 的嗎？

Yes, AWS trajectory. Exactly.

是的，AWS 軌跡。確切地。

Okay. Let me start with the efficiency. I just outlined a lot of it in the prior answer. But just to clarify, we were aiming for about $1.5 billion improvements sequentially versus Q2 and Q3. We feel like we came up about $0.5 billion short on that. Mostly in our productivity, with the Prime Day and the preparations for the Prime Early Access event, we have been running with very high inventory levels in our warehouses. But our inventory and our sellers, as we get ready for those events, paid off in the events themselves. In-stocks have been at really high levels.

好的。讓我先從效率開始。我剛才在回答中已經概括了很多內容。但需要澄清的是，我們的目標是與第二季和第三季相比，季增約 15 億美元。我們感覺到我們在這方面的缺口大約是 5 億美元。主要是在我們的生產力方面，隨著 Prime Day 和 Prime Early Access 活動的籌備，我們倉庫的庫存水準一直很高。但是，當我們為這些活動做好準備時，我們的庫存和賣家在活動本身中獲得了回報。庫存量一直處於很高水準。

But in that environment, it's a little harder to work on. There's blockages to making improvement in productivity. There's a lot of extra work when you have space constraints. But we will continue that fight. And while I can't forecast into 2023 yet, and I'm not really only talking about Q4, my message is that we have work to do in 2023 that we are aware of and working on today.

但在那種環境下，工作起來就稍微困難一些。存在著阻礙生產力提高的障礙。當空間受限時，還有很多額外的工作要做。但我們將繼續鬥爭。雖然我目前還無法預測 2023 年的情況，而且我實際上不僅僅是在談論第四季度，但我想說的是，我們在 2023 年還有很多工作要做，我們已經意識到這一點，並且正在為此努力。

Dave, do you want to take that question on AWS?

戴夫，你想在 AWS 上回答這個問題嗎？

Yes, this is Dave. Ross, you were just asking around AWS. There's nothing really I'd add to what Brian had already said other than he's spoken about. We've seen the year-over-year growth rate come down as the third quarter progressed and exited in sort of the mid-20s growth rate. And so that's informed how we're thinking about the guidance ranges heading into the fourth quarter, but nothing else to add on that.

是的，這是戴夫。羅斯，你剛才在 AWS 上詢問過。除了 Brian 談到的內容以外，我真的沒有什麼可以補充的。我們看到，隨著第三季的進展，年成長率開始下降，並徘徊在 20% 左右的水平。這就是我們對第四季度指導範圍的看法，除此之外沒有其他可補充的。

Thanks for joining us on the call today and for your questions. A replay will be available on our Investor Relations website for at least 3 months. We appreciate your interest in Amazon, and we look forward to talking with you again next quarter.

感謝您今天的電話會議並提出您的問題。重播將在我們的投資者關係網站上保留至少 3 個月。感謝您對亞馬遜的關注，我們期待下個季度再次與您交談。

Thank you, everyone. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.

謝謝大家。今天的電話會議到此結束。現在您可以斷開您的線路。感謝您的參與，祝您有愉快的一天。