According to Amazon.com’s fourth quarter financial earnings report, AWS earned $17.5 billion in revenue for 2017.
AWS reported $5.1 billion in revenue for the quarter ended March 31, a 44.6% increase over the previous quarter and an 11.5% increase over the third quarter. Wall Street analysts had expected Q4 revenue to be around $4.9 billion.
Operating income was $1.4 Billion, an increase of 46.2% year-over-year.
AWS was responsible for 8% of the total business of its parent company in Q4. AWS grew year-over-year in line with previous quarters. (The North America retail segment saw a 42% increase in year-over-year growth, while the International segment saw a 29% increase.
Another positive note is that AWS saw a slight increase in year-overyear growth in Q4. The platform’s growth rate reached its peak 10 quarters ago when it soared by 81 percent. Although this quarter is not as high as the peak, it is still a significant improvement on the trend of declining growth in recent quarters (see table).
Reporting Period AWS Revenue, (Billions). Year-over-Year Revenue growth (%) Q4 2017 $5.1 45 Q3 2017 $4.1 42Q1 of 2017 $13.743 Q4 2016 $3.255 Q3 2016 $2.9 58Q1 of 2016 $2.256 Q4 2015 $2.664 Q1 Of 2016 $2.664 Q4 2015 $2.4 69Q3 of 2015 $2.178 Q2 2015 $1.8 81Q1 2015 * $1.649 * First time reported as a separate line.
Amazon.com announced its earnings report and attributed AWS’ growth in Q4 to continued cloud infrastructure investments, some high-profile customer wins, and nearly 500 new services or features it launched in Q4, many of which were announced at the re:Invent conference last November.
According to Microsoft’s latest earnings report, Azure, widely considered AWS’ closest competitor, saw its revenues grow by 98% year-over-year. Although Azure is still a significant share behind AWS, it has been showing signs that it is catching up to the market leader and even taking the lead for some segments, such as large enterprises.
