AWS Leads Cloud Market with 18% Growth, Faces Stiff Competition in AI-Driven Landscape

Amazon's cloud business records 18% growth in second quarter

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman speaks at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Dec. 4, 2024. Amazon's cloud group grew recorded revenue growth of 18% in the second quarter, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the cloud infrastructure market, but is facing intensifying pressure from Microsoft and Google, as all three companies ramp up investments in artificial intelligence to take advantage of booming demand. Microsoft and Google reported better-than-expected cloud results for the latest quarter, with higher growth rates than Amazon. On Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said revenue from Azure and other cloud services exceeded $75 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, with growth in the quarter of 39%. It's the first time Microsoft has provided a dollar figure for the business. Last week, Alphabet reported revenue of $13.62 billion for its cloud computing business, a 32% increase from a year ago. AWS' revenue for the second quarter totaled $30.87 billion, Amazon said on Thursday. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had expected $30.8 billion. AWS now represents 18% of Amazon's revenue. The cloud remains a profit center for Amazon. AWS generated $10.2 billion in second-quarter operating income, trailing the average analyst estimate of $10.9 billion, according to StreetAccount. Amazon's total operating income was $19.2 billion.

AWS Beats Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in Q2 2025 Revenue | AIM

"AWS continues to build a multi-billion-dollar business, with more demand than we have supply for at the moment." Amazon reported financial results for Q2 2025, with net sales of $167.7 billion, up 13% year-on-year. Net income reached $18.2 billion, compared to $13.5 billion a year ago. AWS' revenue grew 17.5% to $30.9 billion, slightly above analysts' expectations. It contributed $10.2 billion in operating income, out of Amazon's total operating income of $19.2 billion. It has an annualised revenue run rate of $123 billion. Andy Jassy, president and CEO of Amazon, said that the company has expanded Alexa+ to millions of customers and made it much easier for software developers to write code with Kiro, Amazon's new agentic IDE. Moreover, it has launched Strands to make it easier to build AI agents and released Bedrock AgentCore to enable agents to be operated securely and scalably. "AWS continues to build a large, fast-growing, triple-digit year-over-year percentage, multi-billion-dollar business, with more demand than we have supply for at the moment," he said during the earnings call. Amazon reported cash capital expenditures of $31.4 billion in Q2 2025, with AWS remaining the primary driver. The company said this level of investment is likely to continue through the second half of the year. "We expect Q2 capex to be reasonably representative of our quarterly capital investment rate for the back half of this year," Amazon CFO Brian T Olsavsky said. Much of the spending is directed toward meeting demand for AI services, with ongoing investments in custom silicon like Tranium, chips, data centres and power infrastructure. "We will continue to invest more capital in chips, data centres and power to pursue this unusually large opportunity that we have in generative AI," Olsavsky added. Meanwhile, Microsoft reported Intelligent Cloud revenue of $29.9 billion in Q4 2025, an increase of 26%. Within this segment, Azure and other cloud services grew by 39%, signalling sustained enterprise demand for Microsoft's infrastructure and platform offerings. "Cloud and AI are the driving force of business transformation across every industry and sector," Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said. "We're innovating across the tech stack to help customers adapt and grow in this new era, and this year, Azure surpassed $75 billion in revenue, up 34%, driven by growth across all workloads."Google Cloud reported a revenue of $13.6 billion in Q2 2025, up by 32% from a year ago. "To give a sense of progress, in 2015, all of Alphabet's revenue added up to $75 billion. YouTube and Cloud alone ended 2024 at an annual run rate of $110 billion," CEO Sundar Pichai said.