Amazon in the UK outperformed the rest of the retail market and even its own international business to record a 20.7% jump in revenue to $17.53bn in the year to December 31, 2019. Converted into local currency, this means that UK sales soared by 23.2% to £13.4bn.

Amazon’s results, which are broken out for key markets in its annual filing, show that despite a difficult economic climate, revenue growth in the UK outperformed that of its other largest international markets in Germany and Japan, which grew by 11.8% and 15.7% respectively.

Globally, Amazon’s total net sales for the full year jumped 20% to $280.5bn (£214.9bn). Excluding currency impact, net sales increased 22% year on year.

Operating income increased to $14.5bn (£11.1bn), an increase of 16.9% from the previous year. Net income was up 8.7% to $11.6bn (£8.9bn).

By segment, Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenues jumped 37% during the year. The North America segment recorded a 21% increase in revenue.

Amazon’s international business was up 13% in total, showing the strength of the UK’s contribution last year as the company continued to ramp up investment in markets including India, Australia and the Netherlands.

Breaking down the results by operating segment, Amazon’s online stores accounted for 50.4% of total revenues, with third party services at 19.2%, indicating that the total merchandise value sold by the retailer is far higher.

Subscription services contributed 6.8% of revenues as Amazon revealed that the number of Prime subscribers surpassed the 150-million threshold by the end of the year, up by around 50% in just two years.

Amazon UK sales jump 23% to £13.4bn in 2019