Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O) cloud business is offering a small sliver of light. The $1.2 trillion e-commerce giant increased third-quarter AWS revenue 12% year-over-year to $23 billion. The performance matches last quarter’s growth and is in-line with what analysts were expecting, according to LSEG. It’s a low bar, but at least it wasn’t a deceleration, like rival Alphabet (GOOGL.O).
Alphabet, in its earnings on Tuesday, said its similar unit’s growth rate slowed. Shares in the company led by Sundar Pichai declined by a tenth in two days.
The company led by Andy Jassy also managed to keep steady the growth rate for North American retail at 11%, the same performance for the past two quarters. That contributed to an initial 5% bump in the company’s shares in after-hours trading.
It’s not exactly a cloudless sky - AWS growth is slowing relative to last year, and its growth rate is still 10 percentage points below Alphabet’s. But for investors, the grey cloud was blue.(By Jennifer Saba)
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