M+E Connections

Strong AWS results again helped Amazon report stronger results, in its second quarter (ended June 30), the company said July 29.

AWS revenue grew to $14.8 billion in Q2 from $10.8 billion a year ago, while AWS operating profit increased to $4.2 billion from $3.4 billion.

Total Amazon revenue increased 27 percent to $113.1 billion, while profit increased to $7.8 billion ($15.12 a share) from $5.2 billion ($10.30 a share).

AWS revenue growth “accelerated across a broad range of customers” in Q2, according to Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky.

Recent new AWS client wins came from a “diverse set of major industries, including Swisscom and Bell Canada in telecom, BMO Financial Group and Bancolombia in financial services, and Ferrari in automotive,” he told analysts on an earnings call.

“AWS customers recognize that the move to the cloud is very positive for their businesses in the medium and long term,” he said. Meanwhile, “disruptive economic events like COVID have caused many people to step back and think about how they want to change strategically,” he noted, adding: “Many have come to the conclusion that they do not want to own and run their own datacenters. They see that they can save money and gain agility and innovation by moving to AWS.”

Amazon, meanwhile, continued to be “very pleased with the Prime member growth and engagement we’re seeing,” he said, noting the company welcomed more than 50 million new members in the last 18 months and “Prime member benefits usage remains high.”

That usage included “continued strong engagement in Prime’s family of digital offerings, like Prime Video’s original movies,” he said. “For example, Prime members helped make The Tomorrow War and Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse the number one streaming movies on their respective opening weekends,” he noted.

During the Q&A, he pointed out that, in the past quarter, AWS achieved “more revenue quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year than any quarter in our history.”

AWS now represents a “$59 billion annualized run-rate business and that’s up from $43 billion at this time last year,” he said, explaining: “I think that’s what you’re seeing and it’s matching up well with a renewed emphasis on getting to the cloud by a lot of companies out there” that are “looking to make that transition, giving up control and… choosing a partner for the long haul, and we’re proud that companies choose us for that journey.”

Amazon saw “good trends with new contracts and new clients that are either signing up with AWS and making the journey to the cloud or accelerating their journey to the cloud, or setting up new longer-term contracts with us,” he added.

As another example of that, the National Hockey League (NHL) “debuted two new advanced analytics during the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs—shot analytics and save analytics,” Amazon said in its earnings news release. “These new stats powered by AWS appear as on-screen graphics and data visualizations during NHL games and give fans a better understanding and deeper appreciation of how their favorite players and teams perform during crucial moments.”

AWS and Salesforce recently announced a “significant expansion of their global strategic partnership, making it easier for customers to build and launch custom applications,” Amazon also noted, explaining: “The expanded partnership extends the technological capabilities of both providers, connecting Salesforce data and workflows natively into their solutions running on AWS, and making it easy for Salesforce developers to integrate AWS data and workflows into Salesforce applications.” In addition, Salesforce will “embed AWS services for voice, video, artificial intelligence, and machine learning directly in new applications for sales, service, and industry vertical use cases,” Amazon said.

AWS, meanwhile, plans to open infrastructure regions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the first half of 2022 and Israel in the first half of 2023, according to Amazon. The new regions “will enable even more developers, startups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and nonprofits to run their applications and serve end-users from data centers located in the UAE and Israel,” Amazon said.

Globally, AWS now has 81 Availability Zones across 25 geographic regions, with plans to launch 21 more Availability Zones and seven more AWS regions, Amazon added.