Amazon Web Services (AWS) continued to support corporate profitability even as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) invested in business expansions with the acquisition of Whole Foods, Prime growth and the introduction of new Echo and Fire TV devices.
More than 70% of AWS’ $1.171 billion in operating profit went to counter operating losses in the collective other retail and media segments, as AWS continued its 42% year-to-year growth to deliver $4.584 billion in 3Q17 revenue. On a trailing twelve month basis,
AWS has returned more than $3.9 billion in operating profits, while the remaining Amazon business operated at a $668 million loss, despite prominent mind-share in many of the markets it competes in.
AWS continues to drive revenue as an exclusive or preferred cloud provider across many customers, noting deals with Toyota Racing Development, Randstad, GRAIL, Hulu, Fair Isaac Corporation, and further commitment from General Electric.
Though product announcements were less prevalent in the months ahead of its late-November re:Invent conference, AWS continues to innovate its product set to appease the needs of its customers with advancements like a new application migration status service, AWS Migration Hub, and a machine learning-backed security service that automatically discovers and protects sensitive data being run through AWS.
More transformative products will be unveiled at the conference, as AWS innovates across areas such as artificial intelligence, IoT, development tools, unique business services, and infrastructure enhancements that keep it a competitive option for high-performance, high-value workloads.
AWS’ commitment to innovation has and will continue to help AWS maintain its revenue lead over its cloud platform and infrastructure challengers Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix and Google Cloud Platform, who each draw less than one-third the revenue volume of AWS.
