M+E Connections

Strong AWS results again helped Amazon report stronger results for the first quarter (ended March 31).

AWS revenue grew to $13.5 billion in Q1 from $10.2 billion a year ago, while AWS operating profit increased to $4.2 billion from $3.1 billion.

Total Amazon revenue jumped 44% to $108.5 billion. Profit increased to $8.1 billion ($15.79 a share) from $2.5 billion ($5.01 a share).

Regarding the “momentum” that Amazon saw in AWS during Q1, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on an earnings call with analysts that “AWS revenue growth accelerated across a broad range of customers.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon has “seen many enterprises decide that they no longer want to manage their own technology infrastructure,” he said, adding: “They see that partnering with AWS and moving to the cloud gives them better cost, better capability and better speed of innovation. We expect this trend to continue as we move into the post pandemic recovery. There’s significant momentum around the world, including broad and deep engagement across major industries.”

Meanwhile, “we continue to expand our AWS infrastructure footprint to support the strong growth we’re seeing,” he said, pointing out AWS now “offers 80 availability zones across 25 geographic regions around the world, and we’ve announced plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones in five more regions.” Those new regions are Australia, India, Indonesia, Spain and Switzerland, Amazon said in its earnings news release.

AWS announced the launch of a second full region in Japan—the AWS Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region—that is an expansion of the existing AWS Osaka Local Region. The new region includes three Availability Zones and joins the existing 25 Availability Zones in eight AWS Regions across Asia Pacific in Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Ningxia, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo, according to Amazon.

Amazon also pointed out that the media and entertainment industry “continues to move to AWS at a rapid pace with The Walt Disney Company working with AWS on the expansion of Disney+ to more than 100 million subscribers around the world.”

During Q1, Amazon announced “new commitments and migrations from some of the world’s most renowned sports leagues,” including the National Hockey League (NHL), the PGA Tour and Formula 1, Olsavsky noted.

The NHL uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and other AWS technologies to “create new viewing experiences and in-depth stats and analytics,” while the PGA Tour “uses AWS cloud and machine learning technologies to transform the way golf content is created, distributed, and experienced,” Amazon said.

The German Bundesliga, Germany’s top national soccer league, “uses AWS to power three new Bundesliga Match Facts to give fans deeper insights… while Formula 1 (F1) uses a range of AWS technologies, including machine learning, for six new F1 Insights for the 2021 season that help motor racing fans understand the strategy of their favorite driver,” according to Amazon.

In other Amazon businesses, Prime Video streaming hours grew more than 70% over the past 12 months, Olsavsky told analysts. “Twitch is also seeing great momentum, he said, explaining: “Hours watched on Twitch nearly doubled year over year in the first quarter, and we now average more than 35 million daily visitors.”

Amazon also announced new Alexa features in Q1, including Music Sharing with Alexa, which enables users to share songs with friends and family who are Alexa contacts, and Alexa for Xbox, which gives U.S. and Canadian customers more ways to interact with their video game consoles using their voice, such as asking Alexa to download games remotely via Xbox’s Game Pass service.