Startup
Amazon profit soars 55% in Q3 driven by cloud growth
reported strong third-quarter results, with profit soaring 55.2%, fuelled by robust growth in its cloud computing business, which energised investor sentiment.
The tech firm’s shares rose by about 6% in after-hours trading.
The Seattle-based company reported a bottom line of $15.3 billion in its third quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared with $9.9 billion earned in the year-ago period.
Its cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), posted an operating income of $10.4 billion in Q3, up 49.7% year-over-year (YoY). This represents nearly 60% of its parent’s operating income of $17.4 billion in the third quarter.
AWS contributes significantly to the company’s topline and bottom line.
Amazon President and Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said that AWS now stands at a $110 billion annualised run rate. “We have seen significant reacceleration of AWS growth for the last four quarters,” he noted during the third-quarter earnings call.
In Q3, Amazon’s net sales rose 11% YoY to $158.9 billion, while AWS segment sales increased 19% YoY to $27.5 billion.
Amazon leads the cloud infrastructure market, competing with Microsoft and Google. According to data from Synergy Research Group, their market shares were 32%, 23%, and 12% respectively, as of Q2 2024.
Earlier this week, Alphabet said Google’s cloud business witnessed a 35% YoY jump in revenue, touching $11.3 billion in Q3 FY24, while Microsoft said its Azure and other cloud services revenue growth was 33% in Q1 FY25. These cloud business growth numbers are fuelled by a strong adoption of artificial intelligence.
AI opportunity
Amazon, like the others, is tapping into this big AI opportunity.
“AWS’s AI business is a multibillion-dollar revenue run rate business that continues to grow at a triple-digit year-over-year percentage and is growing more than three times faster at this stage of its evolution as AWS itself grew, and we felt like AWS grew pretty quickly,” Jassy remarked.
Tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta have significantly increased their capital expenditure to expand their server and data centre infrastructure, driven by the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and its demanding computational requirements.
“We have more demand that we could fulfil if we had even more capacity today. I think pretty much everyone today has less capacity than they have demand for, and it’s really primarily chips that are the area where companies could use more supply,” Jassy noted.
“We are growing at a very rapid rate and have grown a pretty big business here in the AI space. And it’s early days, but I actually believe that the rate of growth has a chance to improve over time as we have bigger and bigger capacity,” he added.
Amazon Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said that the company expects to spend approximately $75 billion in capex in 2024.
Jassy expects Amazon’s spending to increase in 2025, with the majority allocated to AWS, particularly due to the rise in generative AI.
“Data centres, for instance, are useful assets for 20 to 30 years. And so, I think we have proven over time that we can drive enough operating income and free cash flow to make this very successful return on invested capital business,” Jassy explained.
“We expect the same thing will happen here with generative AI. It is a really unusually large, maybe once-in-a-lifetime type of opportunity,” he added.
Stores and other businesses
Net sales from Amazon’s online stores reached $61.4 billion, an 8% increase year-over-year, while physical store sales were $5.2 billion, up 5% YoY.
Alongside its cloud business, advertising emerged as a strong performer for the company, with ads services sales rising 19% YoY to $14.3 billion for the quarter. This business managed to exceed the growth seen in Amazon’s core retail segment.
Meanwhile, the subscription services witnessed an 11% YoY growth to $11.3 billion.
For the fourth quarter—its largest of the year—the ecommerce giant provided guidance. Net sales are expected to range between $181.5 billion and $188.5 billion, up 7% to 11% compared with the year-ago period. Operating income is projected to be between $16.0 billion and $20.0 billion, up from $13.2 billion in Q4 2023.
“We are encouraged by the start of the holiday season, which kicked off in October with a strong Prime Big Deal Days,” Olsavsky said.
Startup
Magenta Mobility’s FY24 revenue rises three fold, losses widen by 17.1%
Magenta Mobility on Thursday reported a 199.5% jump in its full-year revenue to Rs 35.53 crore compared to Rs 11.86 crore in the previous year helped by a significant rise in its revenue from services.
The company provides a 100% electric fleet and AI and IoT-enabled fleet management and data analytics platform to optimise logistics operations and deliveries. Revenue from these services for the year ended March 31, 2024, increased to Rs 30.17 crore compared to Rs 10.15 crore in FY23.
However, the company reported a 17.1% increase in its loss for the period to Rs 46.44 crore as opposed to Rs 39.66 crore in FY23, bogged down by rising expenses during the year. The 109.1% rise in expenses to Rs 90.17 crore was primarily due to rising driver costs, employee benefit expenses, and finance costs.
Magenta Mobility appoints drivers on a contract basis to provide services to its customers, which it accounts as an expense. The drivers’ cost for FY24 increased to Rs 18.49 crore, compared to Rs 6.34 crore in FY23.
The rise in demand for the company’s fleet comes amidst a boom in the last-mile delivery sector in India owing to the rise of ecommerce and quick commerce players. Magenta Mobility caters to clients such as Flipkart and hyper-local delivery platform Dunzo, among others.
Founded in 2017 by Maxson Lewis and Darryl Dias, the company last raised $22 million in a Series A funding round from BP Venture and Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure-managed investment fund.
Startup
Juspay cuts losses by 7.7% as revenue surges 49.6% in FY24
Payments startup Juspay Technologies saw its losses narrowing in FY24 as revenue growth outpaced expenditure. It narrowed its total loss for the period to Rs 97.54 crore, down 7.76% from Rs 105.75 crore in FY23.
According to the consolidated financial statements accessed from the Registrar of Companies, the SoftBank-backed fintech firm’s revenue from operations surged 49.64% to Rs 319.32 crore, up from Rs 213.39 crore in FY23.
Juspay’s primary revenue source—payment platform integration fees—brought in Rs 286.52 crore. Additional operating revenue from services like product implementation and support added Rs 32.80 crore.
Total expenses rose by 29.52% to Rs 443.74 crore in FY24, compared to Rs 342.59 crore in the previous year. This increase was largely driven by employee benefit expenses, which saw a 41.73% jump to Rs 303.36 crore, while other expenses increased slightly over 3.56% to Rs 123.76 crore.
Juspay, founded in 2012 by Vimal Kumar and Ramanathan RV in Bengaluru, specialises in developing payment orchestration solutions that act as a technology layer over traditional payment gateways.
The Accel-backed startup has also developed Namma Yatri, a mobility app focusing on ride-hailing services, leveraging Juspay’s strengths in payments and open-source protocols. Namma Yatri is built on the Beckn Protocol and aligns with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), aiming to provide low-cost ride-hailing options and open access to digital mobility services.
Recently, Juspay decided to spin off Namma Yatri as an independent entity to attract separate investors and scale further. In February, the company said it acquired LotusPay in an all-cash deal to strengthen its offerings to the BFSI segment and merchants.
LotusPay, founded in 2016, pioneered NACH Debit technology with cloud-based software for merchants and banks. Using NPCI’s NACH Debit, it facilitates recurring payments for loans, insurance, and subscriptions.
Startup
Flipkart selects five startups for third cohort of Flipkart Leap Innovation Network
Flipkart Leap Innovation Network (FLIN).
has selected five innovative startups for the third cohort of its flagship startup accelerator programme,The cohort is introducing startups that are driving advancements across GenAI, omnichannel, analytics, and video commerce, the company said in a statement.
The selected startups— Intelligence Node, Invenzo Labs, StoryBrain, Phyllo, and D-ID— are set to run pilot programs with Flipkart to develop solutions.
“The selected startups get access to mentorship, resources, and the opportunity to execute pilot projects within the Flipkart ecosystem, scaling their solutions to meet the demands of India’s digital economy and e-commerce growth,” the company said.
Since its launch in 2022, the accelerator programme aims to accelerate the growth of the startup ecosystem in India, driving collaboration, and championing cutting-edge retail innovations.
“Through the FLIN programme, Flipkart continues to expand its role as a catalyst for innovation within India’s startup ecosystem, providing a collaborative platform for startups to test, refine, and deploy solutions that can shape the future of e-commerce in India,” said Naren Ravula, Vice President and Head – Product Strategy and Flipkart Labs.
The programme is designed to engage with startups through commercial partnerships in Flipkart’s areas of interest. Successful startups get the opportunity to scale up to a business partnership.
Over 20 startups from the initial two cohorts have concluded pilots working closely with the Flipkart Product and Engineering teams.
The company added that four startups from the previous cohort— Anagog, Speedsize, Sangti, and Vtion— have recently concluded successful pilot projects with Flipkart.
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