San Francisco (AFP)

Amazon posted $ 7.8 billion in net income in the second quarter, 48% more than a year ago, a result driven by online commerce and the cloud that are not weakening, even with the lifting of restrictions sanitary facilities.

The technology giant, however, lost 6.85% on the stock market after the closing of Wall Street on Thursday, because of a turnover of 113 billion, up 27%, but less than 2 billion analysts' forecasts.

During the past quarter, Amazon notably took advantage of its "Prime Day", an annual promotional operation that lasts two days on its e-commerce site and targets subscribers to its Prime formula, including free deliveries in 24 hours and other advantages.

"In twenty countries, Prime subscribers have spent more and saved more during this Prime Day + than during any other before, buying 250 million products," said the Seattle group in its earnings release.

According to eMarketer, in 2021, the platform's global sales will grow by more than 26% to $ 626.6 billion, or 12.7% of the global e-commerce market.

These sales have also largely benefited third-party resellers, said the firm, regularly accused of crushing competition on a platform where it also markets its own devices and consumer goods.

At the end of May, the prosecutor of the American capital Washington launched a lawsuit against Amazon, which he accuses of preventing merchants from selling their products cheaper elsewhere than on his site.

- Cloud and space -

These political pressures and recurring criticism from associations about the working conditions in the company's warehouses did not undermine its commercial success.

Amazon also offered the almost century-old Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the end of May for 8.45 billion dollars.

This catalog will allow it to considerably expand Prime Video, its streaming service included in the subscription.

The appetite for the cloud, or remote computing, does not diminish either, even with the gradual lifting of health restrictions, thanks to the needs of companies in storage and computer processing of data.

AWS, the cloud division of Amazon, the global industry leader, made $ 14.8 billion in revenue, 37% more than a year ago at the same time.

The company recently achieved a major victory in this area, which portends new lucrative opportunities.

The US Department of Defense canceled the $ 10 billion cloud mega-contract awarded to Microsoft in 2019 to the detriment of Amazon in early July.

Instead, he plans to hire several companies, starting with the two competitors.

The new boss of the group is also Andy Jassy, ​​previously director of AWS.

Jeff Bezos, the site's founder which started as an online bookstore 27 years ago, handed over the reins to it earlier this month, while remaining chairman of the board.

He intends to devote himself further to other projects, and has just realized his dream of going into space aboard the first manned flight of his space tourism company, Blue Origin.

© 2021 AFP