Amazon owns AWS, the cloud-computing business that helped make it one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, began offering its first major services in 2006. It provides computing power, storage, databases, networking, and other tools over the internet, allowing organizations to rent infrastructure rather than build all of it themselves.
Amazon’s corporate valuation reflects several businesses at once: online retail, third-party marketplace services, advertising, subscriptions, logistics, devices, and AWS. AWS became a particularly important profit contributor because cloud services can have different economics from retail sales.
AWS is often confused with Amazon’s shopping website because both use the Amazon name. They are separate business activities within the same public company. Amazon’s stock trades under AMZN, and its market capitalization changes continuously with the share price.