Plenty of room for multiple vendors in the cloud space - Amazon CFO

Amazon records strong Q2 results driven by AWS growth

There is "plenty of room for multiple vendors" in the cloud services space, according to Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavksy.

Olsavsky was speaking on an earnings call after Amazon reported a strong performance from its cloud division in Q2.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recorded net sales of $2.88bn (£2.18bn) in the three months ending 30 June 2016, a 58 per cent increase on the same period last year.
AWS operating income was up 135 per cent to $718m in the same period.

Olsavsky was asked his thoughts on larger customers using AWS as part of a multi-cloud ecosystem with rivals Microsoft Azure and Google.

In reply, Olsavksy said: "We believe customers will choose AWS primarily for three factors - the functionality and pace of innovation that we bring to the table, our partner and customer ecosystem and our experience.

"We've been in this business longer than anyone. Having said that, there is room - there's plenty of room - for multiple vendors in this business."

Earlier this month Microsoft reported a 102 per cent growth in its Azure cloud computing division.

AWS is not growing as well in the UK as rivals Google and Microsoft Azure, according to analyst firm TechMarketView.

"Our view is that AWS is growing at a slower rate in the UK specifically," said Kate Hanaghan, research director at TechMarketView. "That said, AWS is outpacing the market and most of the other players."

As a whole Amazon's Q2 saw net income soar to $857m, up from $92m in 2015. Net product sales were $21bn in the same period, compared with $17bn last year.