Amazon announced it Q4 Results this week, which showed that Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, continues to generate billions in revenue and has helped the tech giant post a profit.
AWS reported $3.53 billion in revenue for Q4 2016, up 47 percent from the year-ago quarter and up more than $300 million from Q3 2016.
AWS accounted for 8 percent of Amazon’s $44.68 billion in total revenue for Q4. That’s in line with last quarter, when AWS reeled in $3.2 billion, or nearly 10 percent of Amazon’s total Q3 revenue.
On its earnings call with reporters, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky noted that AWS has now reached a $14 billion annual run rate. AWS posted $12.2 billion in sales for 2016 and more than $3 billion in profit.
We’re seeing strong usage growth across all those groups.
We’re constantly balancing innovation, lower prices and also taking costs out through greater efficiencies in infrastructure.
Amazon has come to depend on AWS to fuel the rest of its sprawling business and feed its global ambitions. AWS, which launched more than a decade ago, has emerged as a huge economic engine for the organization.