1 Number That Should Concern Every Amazon Investor

For all intents and purposes, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) had a fantastic third quarter. Revenue increased 12% year over year, and operating income was up 61%. This is the largest company in the world by sales, and conventional wisdom, as well as the law of large numbers, suggests that companies slow down as they get bigger. Not so Amazon, with its consistent double-digit growth.

The bulk of it is coming from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing business. Although this segment has been around for a while now, it's recently been enjoying massive growth from artificial intelligence (AI) development, much of which happens through its cloud platform.

AWS sales increased nearly 40% year over year in the third quarter, its highest in almost five years, and on a base about 4 times bigger; five years ago, AWS had $11.6 billion in third-quarter sales, and this year, it had $46 billion.

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