Amazon has posted a 23 per cent year-on-year increase in revenues, hitting $19.74bn for the first quarter, compared to $16.07bn for Q1 2013. Despite higher sales, however, profits slipped 19 per cent to just $146m, compared to $181m in Q1, 2013, off the back of rising operating costs, which increased by 23 per cent during Q1 to $19.59bn.

Announcing the figures, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said: “We get our energy from inventing on behalf of customers, and 2014 is off to a kinetic start. Our device team launched Fire TV, offering great content, including our recently announced exclusive deal with HBO, and innovative features like unified voice search, which we’re delighted is being adopted by so many new partners, including Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, Crackle and Showtime Anytime.”

Fire TV is just one of a number of recent service launches from Amazon. Perhaps most interesting is Amazon Prime Pantry, Amazon’s latest initiative in the groceries market, alongside Amazon Fresh, which has been running in stealth mode since 2007.

Prime Pantry offers US Amazon Prime members “exclusive” access to low-priced everyday essentials such as soft drinks, paper and laundry products, breakfast cereals and personal care products, delivered to their home for a $5.99 delivery fee per Prime Pantry box. In a similar vein, Dash allows Prime Fresh customers, and their families to order items by scanning the barcode or saying the name of the item they want.

Perhaps most surprising, given the negative press Amazon received pre-Christmas for the working conditions inside its fulfilment centres, the company is now offering fulfilment centre tours in the US. When you can spend a day watching Amazon orders being picked and packed, who needs theme parks?