Most people know Amazon as the world’s leading e-commerce platform, the number 1 online shopping destination for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Over the years, the company has built a vast logistics network and a huge global customer base, making its retail business the most visible part of its success. But behind the scenes, another division has become just as critical to Amazon’s growth story: AWS. For the past decade, Amazon Web Services, as the company’s cloud arm is called, has been a key driver of profitability and the perfect addition to its low-margin e-commerce business.
Since its launch in 2006, AWS has gradually evolved into the financial backbone of Amazon’s business. As our chart shows, AWS has grown rapidly and uninterruptedly over the past decade and now contributes a disproportionate share of Amazon’s profit. This profitability allows Amazon to continuously invest in its e-commerce operations, from expanding its fulfillment network to improving delivery speeds and developing new services. In other words, many of the innovations that Amazon has introduced in recent years wouldn’t have been possible without AWS.
In Q1 2026, Amazon's cloud business accounted for 21 percent of the company's total sales but for 59 percent of its operating profit. With a current revenue run rate of $150 billion and its very high operating margin, AWS is a key component of Amazon's long-term success that tends to be overlooked and underappreciated.
