Amazon hits record $2.5bn quarterly profits driven by online sales and cloud demand

Amazon’s profits hit a record $2.53bn (£1.9bn) in Q2 this year, driven by its dominance in e-commerce and growing demand for its lucrative cloud computing services. Takings for the last three months amounted to 12 times that of the same period last year, with sales rising 39% to meet $52.9bn (£40.4bn) and its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division raking in $6.1bn (£4.7bn) in sales - a 50% hike year on year. Amazon’s shares jumped 3% as a result of the financials, casting a further shadow on the 20% drop seen by fellow ad tech Facebook when earnings fell short of Wall Street expectations in the midst of one of the site’s most turbulent years.“It was a strong quarter,” said Amazon chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky in the firm’s earnings call, attributing it to “continued strength” in some of its most profitable areas, with AWS seeing its third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth, as well as a significant rise in advertising spend.