New Delhi: Amazon, the online shopping hub, has now become consistently profitable as it swept the second quarter with nine-fold profit. The internet giant registered profits to the tune of $857 million, which shows that it has been lifted up by cloud services. Its revenue jumped from 31 per cent to $30.4 billion.
While Amazon developed a reputation for delivering little or no profit in its retail operations, its earnings have been growing over the past year as it expands into video and new delivery services and boosts its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The strong profit came a year after earnings of $92 million which began a string of improvements for Amazon.
Amazon shares lifted up by 1.5 percent in after-hours trade.
Amazon has been busy building royalty with its prime subscription service, which is responsible of providing access to the online video and music also for fact delivery of some items.
Amazon has been growing rapidly in India.
‘It’s been a busy few months for Amazon around the world, and particularly in India — where we launched a new AWS region, introduced Prime with unlimited free shipping, and announced that Prime Video is coming soon, offering Prime members in India exclusive access to Amazon Original Series and Movies – including original content featuring top Indian creators and talent,’ said Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos in a statement.
‘The team in India is inventing at a torrid pace, and we’re very grateful to our Indian customers for their welcoming response.’
But according to the reports at Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimated Amazon Prime now has 63 million US members, with an average expenditure of about $1,200 per year, when compared its about $500 per year for non-members.
In its statement Amazon said its second annual ‘Prime Day’ was the biggest day ever for Amazon, and was also a record day for Amazon devices globally.
PTI