Investors cheered Amazon’s latest earnings report, sending the stock up 9% after the company revealed its cloud division is growing at its fastest pace in years. Amazon Web Services (AWS) saw a 20% revenue jump, bringing in $33bn for the quarter.
This performance, which CEO Andy Jassy highlighted as the best since 2022, was part of a broader earnings beat. Amazon’s total revenue hit $180.17bn, against a $177.82bn prediction, with earnings per share at $1.95 instead of the expected $1.58.
The strong cloud growth is significant as it’s the first financial report since a major AWS outage. The incident, which affected millions, appears to have had no negative impact on the division’s revenue, underscoring its market dominance.
Amazon is also trying to prove it’s a serious contender in the AI race. The company is integrating AI tools like the Rufus shopping assistant and expanding its autonomous Zoox robotaxi tests to Washington D.C.
Amid this success, Amazon is also cutting 14,000 corporate jobs. While the company’s blog post pointed to AI, CEO Andy Jassy insisted the move was “culture-driven” to make the massive company more “nimble.”