AWS results impress again to boost Amazon profits
Amazon’s latest financial figures are in, with the company’s Q2 2023 looking to have been a successful period all-round, not least for its AWS cloud division.
During the three months leading up to June 30, 2023, Amazon posted revenue figures of $134.4 billion, up from $121.2 billion year-on-year, representing an 11% increase. Of this, $22.1 billion (or 16.4%) was accounted for by AWS, which saw a marginally larger year-on-year growth of 12%.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said: “AWS has continued to add to its meaningful leadership position in the cloud with a slew of generative AI releases.”
AWS continues to grow
During the three-month period, Amazon Web Services announced a series of new partnerships, commitments, and migrations with global enterprises like HSBC, Experian, and Omnicom.
The company also launched AWS Local Zones in Auckland (New Zealand) and Manila (Philippines), and an Amazon CloudFront location in Nigeria.
Clearly, recent months have proven costly for AWS. Despite measuring success and increasing revenue, quarterly operating expenses grew by 19.6% year-on-year. A broader six-month year-on-year overview shows operating expenses growing by 27.2%, suggesting that the first three months of the year were most troubling.
This year has been a big year for the company, which has significantly expanded the reach of its AWS business by building on its generative AI portfolio. Early and heavy investment is hoped to pay off in the long run as the company looks to improve operating income, which this quarter saw a 6.1% year-on-year dip to $5.3 billion.
Amazon has also announced swathes of improvements to its Prime subscription this year for both customers and partners. Jassy said:
“We continued lowering our cost to serve in our fulfillment network, while also providing Prime customers with the fastest delivery speeds we’ve ever recorded.”
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