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AWS Hits New High with $3.2 Billion in Revenue
Public cloud leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) continued its upward trajectory on Thursday with the release of Amazon.com's third-quarter financial report.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, AWS met Wall Street expectations with $3.2 billion in revenue, the most it has earned since Amazon.com began breaking out its cloud business as a separate line item.
AWS' Q3 revenue increased by nearly 55% from the same period last year, and by 12% from the previous quarter, when it earned $2.9 billion.
Though AWS accounted for just a tenth of Amazon.com's overall third-quarter earnings, its year-over-year growth rate is bigger than those of Amazon.com's two other business segments combined. (The North America unit grew by 26% year-over-year for a total of $18.9 billion in revenue, and the International unit by 28% year-over-year for $10.6 billion in revenue.)
Operating income for AWS was $861 million, up by 106% year-over-year and by nearly 20% sequentially.
Among the highlights of its fiscal third quarter, Amazon.com credited the hybrid-cloud partnership between VMware and AWS, as well as the launch of a new cloud region in Ohio, as contributors to its growth.
Microsoft, whose Azure platform is AWS' closest -- if distant -- competitor in the public cloud space, earned $6.4 billion in revenue from its cloud business during its most recent quarterly earnings report. However, that figure includes other Microsoft cloud properties besides Azure, such as its Dynamics and Office 365 productivity suites.
Microsoft did report that Azure use doubled year-over-year, leading to a 116% growth in revenue, but did not provide specific dollar figures.
Like AWS, parent company Amazon.com's total revenue was right on target of analyst expectations at $32.7 billion, up by 29% year-over-year. However, its earnings per share, at $0.52, missed analyst estimates of $0.78. Net income was $252 million, compared to estimates of $386 million.