Amazon released information about the performance of its cloud business and the numbers indicate that the business is thriving.
In the first quarter of 2015 Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated revenue of $1.566 billion, 49 percent higher than the $1.05 billion it generated in Q1 2014.
Amazon Web Services made a profit of $265 million in Q1 2015, up from $245 million last year.
According to Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, AWS is a $5 billion business “and still growing fast—in fact it’s accelerating,”
“Born a decade ago, AWS is a good example of how we approach ideas and risk-taking at Amazon. We strive to focus relentlessly on the customer, innovate rapidly, and drive operational excellence. We manage by two seemingly contradictory traits: impatience to deliver faster and a willingness to think long term. We are so grateful to our AWS customers and remain dedicated to inventing on their behalf.”
The business segment now accounts for 7 percent of Amazon’s total revenue.
Amazon reported net sales for the first quarter of $22.7 billion, up 15 percent. The company posted a net loss of $57 million, down from the net loss of $108 million last year.
Source: Amazon Q1 2015 Financial Results
The company’s earnings release on Thursday was the first time since the launch of its cloud service that it released information about AWS quarterly revenue.
Amazon had previously included its cloud business in the category of “North America, Other” which also includes revenue from a range of other sources.
Investors will be keeping an eye on how AWS performs to also assess the general health of the growing cloud computing market.
AWS is the market leader in the public cloud-computing space. According to analysts, it is more than 6 times bigger than Microsoft’s Azure, its closest competitor, with Google lagging behind in third place.
IBM said in its recent quarterly report on Monday that cloud services generated $7.7 billion in revenue in the past year. Microsoft expects its cloud operations to generate $5.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2015.
The public cloud services market totaled $152.45 billion in 2014, according to Gartner estimates, and it is expected to expand by 16 percent to $176.38 billion this year.