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On July 16, 2002, Jeff Bezos, founder and then-CEO of Amazon (AMZN) , said that the company was "putting out the welcome mat for developers."
The internet behemoth was unveiling Amazon Web Services, which the company described as "a platform for creating innovative web solutions and services designed specifically for developers and website owners."
“Developers can now incorporate Amazon.com content and features directly onto their own websites,” Bezos said in a statement. “We can't wait to see how they're going to surprise us.”
More than 20 years later, it's probably fair to say that the company is happily surprised by the growth of AWS.
During Amazon's fourth-quarter-earnings call on Feb. 1, Andy Jassy, Amazon's current CEO, told analysts that AWS revenue grew 13% year-over-year in the quarter compared with 12% year-over year in the third quarter, "and we're now approaching an annualized revenue run rate of $100 billion.
"We watched the incremental revenue added each quarter," Jassy said. "And in Q4 AWS added more than $1.1 billion of incremental quarter-over-quarter revenue, which on [a foreign-exchange-neutral] basis is more than any other cloud provider as far as we can tell."
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Amazon CEO Jassy: '2023 a very significant year'
He added that "2023 also was a very significant year of delivery and customer trial for generative [artificial intelligence] or Gen AI in AWS."
JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth discussed AWS in a report about the internet sector.
Anmuth said he remained positive overall on the sector heading into the first-quarter-earnings reports.
The analyst says investor sentiment is generally constructive, with pockets of higher valuations and elevated expectations.
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Amazon remains the firm's best idea for 2024, he said, "even as it is most owned across our coverage."
"We believe Amazon is well positioned as the market leader in e-commerce and public cloud," the firm said.
Anmuth said he expected Amazon Web Services to excel in the first quarter and for the full year.
"We believe Amazon’s flexibility in pushing first-party vs. third-party inventory and the Prime membership serve as major advantages in its Stores business, and its multiyear head start in the cloud has led to about 35% AWS global market share," he said.
In addition, the analyst is looking for strong stores growth; expanded North American operating-profit margin; improved international profit, and cost discipline, all of which support a multiyear ramp in free cash flow.