Amazon Reports $148 Billion in Second Quarter Sales

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Critically, sales of Amazon’s cloud computing services continued to gain steam, growing 19 percent to $26.3 billion. A year earlier, their growth was just 12 percent. Amazon Web Services has also become more profitable, with an operating margin of 35.5 percent, up from 24.2 percent a year earlier. “We’re continuing to make progress on a number of dimensions, but perhaps none more so than the continued reacceleration in A.W.S. growth,” Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, said in a statement. Like its Big Tech peers, Amazon has been pouring billions of dollars into building its business. It spent $16 billion on capital expenditures, including new data centers, expensive computer chips and warehouses to fulfill orders. It has focused particularly on investing in the advanced computing needed to develop and serve artificial intelligence systems for its customers. While Amazon has become more profitable, it is having a harder time spending that cash. Regulators have stepped up scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions, which prompted Amazon this year to scrap a deal to buy the maker of iRobot vacuums for $1.7 billion. As a result, the company’s cash has grown to record levels, with $71.7 billion on its balance sheet at the end of the quarter. Amazon has historically rejected giving cash back to investors through dividends, saying it can make better use of the money by reinvesting it in the business.