Cloud computing has been very, very good to Amazon

Mary Bruno

Mary Bruno Jun 29, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>Cloud computing has been very, very good to Amazon</h1>
                <h2><p>Amazon Web Services hauled in $4.6 billion in sales last year, according to our hometown e-tailer, and the division's first quarter performance is even stronger: Sales are up 49 percent. AWS traffics in computing and storage services and lives in the cloud. Thursday was the first time</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/mary-bruno-crosscut-com/">Mary Bruno</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>Amazon Web Services hauled in $4.6 billion in sales last year, according to our hometown e-tailer, and the division's first quarter performance is even stronger: Sales are up 49 percent. AWS traffics in computing and storage services and lives in the cloud. Thursday was the first time investors got a peek at AWS performance — and they liked what they saw. Amazon shares jumped 15 percent with the news.</p><p>“We estimated that AWS was profitable,"  Robert W. Baird &amp; Co. analyst Colin Sebastian told <em><a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-meets-analyst-explications-shows-aws-profit/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">The Seattle Times</a></em>. "But not that high.”</p>
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Amazon Web Services hauled in $4.6 billion in sales last year, according to our hometown e-tailer, and the division's first quarter performance is even stronger: Sales are up 49 percent. AWS traffics in computing and storage services and lives in the cloud. Thursday was the first time investors got a peek at AWS performance — and they liked what they saw. Amazon shares jumped 15 percent with the news.

“We estimated that AWS was profitable," Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst Colin Sebastian told The Seattle Times. "But not that high.”

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By Mary Bruno

Mary was Crosscut's Editor-in-Chief and Interim Publisher. In more than 25 years as a journalist, she has worked as a writer, editor and editorial director for a variety of print and web publications,