Amazon Web Services (AWS), a part of Amazon.com, has posted revenue of $6.1 billion (+49 percent) in the second quarter of 2018 – fuelled by several Cloud deals and supported by innovation.
The global retail company’s lucrative business unit grew its operating profit margin from a year earlier. The unit’s success has helped make Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world, Reuters reported.
“It’s really becoming the crown jewel of Bezos’ empire,” said GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives. “They’ve invested significant dollars in building out the infrastructure, sales force and AWS partner ecosystem worldwide.”
AWS has 31 percent share in the fast-expanding Cloud market as compared with 18 percent for Microsoft and 8 percent for Google in the second quarter, research firm Canalys said on Thursday.
The Seattle-based Amazon said its total sales rose 39 percent to $52.9 billion in the second quarter against $38 billion in Q2 2017.
Operating income of Amazon grew to $3 billion from $628 million. Net income increased to $2.5 billion from $197 million.
“We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “There are now tens of thousands of developers across more than 150 countries building new devices using the Alexa Voice Service, and the number of Alexa-enabled devices has more than tripled in the past year.”
AWS announced several deals with companies including Ryanair, Epic Games, zulily, 21st Century Fox, Verizon and its subsidiary Oath, Major League Baseball, Formula One, among others.
