Amazon and Google Are on Cloud Nine

Amazon and Google have announced financial results that outperform the predictions of Wall Street—and, in both cases, cloud computing is an important component of growth. Amazon has reported a net income of $857 million, up 800 percent compared to the same quarter last year. (Amazon often turns a modest profit on account of its aggressive growth strategies.) This quarter’s profits are largely from the company’s Web Services cloud-computing division, which reported operating income of $718 million—up from $305 million 12 months ago—despite accounting for less than 10 percent of the company’s revenue. Meanwhile, Google’s holding company Alphabet saw its revenues rise by $750 million more than analysts were expecting. While most of Google’s income is still driven by ad sales, its cloud-based computing and software businesses were the other main contribution to income. Cloud computing isn’t the core business for either company, but for tech giants that run much of the Internet, it’s clearly an important—and increasingly lucrative—sideline.