AWS sees bumper quarter as AI push begins to pay off

It’s that time of the year again when companies across the world begin to announce their quarterly figures, and Amazon’s numbers don’t disappoint - largely thanks to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division.

Amazon confirmed that total net sales had climbed 11% year-over-year to $143.1 billion in the three months that led up to September 30, 2023, and 13% over the previous three months.

AWS, which in Q3 2023 was worth $23.1 billion to the company, also saw a similar rise of 12% year-over-year.

AWS revenue likely attributable to AI

Speaking about the company’s positive growth, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy noted: “...our AWS growth continued to stabilize.” Its operating income climbed to $7.0 billion, up from $5.4 billion during the same time last year.

AWS attributes much of its success to a new strategic partnership with Anthropic, designed to advance generative AI, and a handful of new and renewed high-status customers, including BMW Group, UK bank NatWest, and international energy company Occidental.

The company also launched the AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region and a new AWS Local Zone in Phoenix, Arizona, helping to support its growth and better serve customers.

Another noteworthy statistic in Amazon’s report are the AWS operating expenses, which, despite huge investment in AI over the past year, hadn’t grown excessively. Q3 2022 saw the company spend $16.1 billion, up from $15.1 billion in Q3 2022, representing a 6.6% increase.

Despite signs of growth, Amazon’s cloud company did not measure the same successes as Google Cloud (up 22%) and Microsoft Azure (up 29%), two major rivals that have also gone in big on AI.

Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky hinted to reporters on a call that this could be a result of a continued degree of economic uncertainty combined with a slowdown in the company’s cost-cutting measures, which so far have led to more than 27,000 redundancies across its entire portfolio.

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