Cloud-Computing at Amazon Shows Growth
New York — Amazon’s profitable cloud-computing services business is growing by leaps and bounds.
That growth helped the e-commerce company Thursday post a 15 percent first-quarter revenue jump and a smaller-than-expected loss. The results sent Amazon’s shares up 6 percent in aftermarket trading.
Investors have been growing restless with Amazon’s long-term strategy of plowing most of the money it makes into new areas like cloud computing, streaming video and hardware — leading to razor-thin profits or, in this quarter’s case, a loss.
Because Amazon had never broken out details on Amazon Web Services before, it wasn’t clear if it was operating at a profit or loss. But details released on Thursday show that surging revenue isn’t coming at expense of a profit in that business, reassuring investors.
Meanwhile, Amazon shows no sign of slowing down new offerings. In recent months, Amazon introduced Amazon Echo, a Bluetooth speaker that responds to voice commands and Amazon Dash, stand-alone buttons that can be pressed to reorder common household goods like Tide detergent.
It has also rolled out services that help users book travel and hire people to complete household projects. And it’s expanding its Amazon Prime Instant Video service for members of its $99 annual Prime loyalty program.
Amazon Web Services is a suite of products and services offered to businesses by way of the “cloud,” remote servers that enable users to access applications on any machine with an Internet connection Revenue in that business rose 49 percent to $1.57 billion. Meanwhile, total revenue rose to $22.72 billion, above analyst expectations of $22.37 billion.
