AI cloud computing and ads drive Amazon profits up 54%
Amazon soundly beat expectations with its third-quarter earnings, posting a $15.3 billion profit for the quarter — a 54% increase year over year — with revenues of $158.9 billion growing 11% from last year. Amazon also beat estimates for earnings per share, coming in at $1.43.
“We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there’s so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we’ll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a press release.
As it gears up for the crucial holiday season, Amazon said it plans to hire 250,000 people across the US.
Amazon’s massive advertising business was in-line with expectations, growing 22% year over year to $14.3 billion in sales.
Across the tech industry, companies are spending enormous amounts to build out capacity for AI. In Q3, Amazon’s capital expenditures grew a whopping 81% to $22.6 billion.
Sales for Amazon’s cloud business, AWS, grew 19% year over year to $27.5 billion, as customers turn to the platform for its growing AI-computing offerings.
Bloomberg reported this week that a new AI-enabled version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant is plagued by technical challenges, and has been delayed until 2025.
Investors liked what they heard, and Amazon’s stock was up about 4% in after-hours trading.
“We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there’s so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we’ll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a press release.
As it gears up for the crucial holiday season, Amazon said it plans to hire 250,000 people across the US.
Amazon’s massive advertising business was in-line with expectations, growing 22% year over year to $14.3 billion in sales.
Across the tech industry, companies are spending enormous amounts to build out capacity for AI. In Q3, Amazon’s capital expenditures grew a whopping 81% to $22.6 billion.
Sales for Amazon’s cloud business, AWS, grew 19% year over year to $27.5 billion, as customers turn to the platform for its growing AI-computing offerings.
Bloomberg reported this week that a new AI-enabled version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant is plagued by technical challenges, and has been delayed until 2025.
Investors liked what they heard, and Amazon’s stock was up about 4% in after-hours trading.
