Amazon doesn’t reveal what it makes on cloud computing, but here’s the number, anyway
April 27, 2013
Grazed from Quartz. Author: Christopher Mims.
Amazon is famously reticent about sales figures, dribbling out clues without revealing actual numbers. But it appears the company has left enough hints to, finally, discern how much revenue it makes on its cloud computing business, known as Amazon Web Services, which provides the backbone for a growing portion of the internet: about $2.4 billion a year.
In the slides accompanying Amazon’s latest earnings report, one chart indicates that revenue from “Amazon Web Services, Advertising Services, and Co-branded Credit Cards” totaled $750 million in the first three months of 2013. Let’s unpack that…
First, there are the credit cards. Amazon appears to make a negligible sum lending its brand name and logo to credit cards, and doesn’t highlight these deals in its press materials, but let’s give the business a generous $25 million per quarter.
Next, there’s Amazon advertising. Thanks to some digging by Reuters, which cites former Amazon executive David Selinger, it appears Amazon is already raking in at least $500 million a year in revenue from selling ads, and that could go to $1 billion by the end of the year…
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