Amazon Shares Skyrocket as Cloud Revenue Growth Exceeds Expectations

Amazon shares rose by 15% to $271.58 on Friday after the company reported accelerating cloud-computing revenue growth in its latest earnings report.

The revenue jump of 37% to $42.2 billion at Amazon Web Services (AWS) eased investors' concerns about the company's huge expenditures to meet the booming demand for artificial intelligence.

AWS generates around a fifth of Amazon's revenue and most of its operating profit, with this being the fifth consecutive period of rising sales at AWS and the fastest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2021.

Amazon is spending heavily on data centres and chips to take advantage of rising demand for AI and cloud-computing services, with a total spend of over $53 billion on property and equipment, including proceeds from some sales, in the period ended June 30.