The cloud represents 7% of Amazon sales – Le Figaro

The US e-commerce platform unveiled for the first time the results of Amazon Web Services, its division dedicated to hosting and design data for business.

Amazon does not want to be known only as an e-commerce giant. On the occasion of the presentation of its financial results for the first quarter of 2015, the US group unveiled for the first time the performance of Amazon Web Services, its division dedicated to hosting and design data for companies that exists since 2006. It reported sales of $ 1.57 billion (1.4 billion euros) between January and March, an increase of 49% in one year. This represents nearly 7% of total Amazon business over the same period, which recorded nearly 22.72 billion dollars in sales.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, n ‘ not hide his pleasure. He even estimated that Amazon Web Services has the potential to reach a turnover of $ 5 billion over the year. In comparison, Microsoft’s cloud division, one of the great rivals Amazon in the field could reach a level of $ 6.3 billion this year. Nevertheless, this branch includes other activities not available to Amazon, as the operation of Office 365, the cloud version of its office suite. According to Synergy Research firm, Amazon owns nearly 30% of global market segment of cloud infrastructure (IaaS) and platform (PaaS) to Microsoft (10%), IBM (7%) or Google (5%) .

According to some analysts, the special attention paid to the cloud division suggests that the US group could soon give it independence or the IPO for as a separate entity. “Amazon Web Services is an activity that is growing fast, even accelerating,” assured Jeff Bezos in a statement. “In ten years, this service has shown how we appreciate the ideas and risk-taking at Amazon.”

These good results primarily enable Amazon to forget, at least partially , its colossal financial losses in other sectors. For the first quarter 2015, the loss amounted to 57 million, against a net profit of $ 108 million last year over the same period. Blame major investment plans that do not always have the expected success, as Fire Phone, which was a dismal failure. This has not yet scalded creativity Amazon. The company continues to test more or less original projects, such as drones by delivery or “Dash Button”, a switch installed in his house to order a product with a single tap.