Mostly from Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud business. In 2025, AWS brought in 18% of Amazon's sales but 57% of its operating income. In three of the years between 2014 and 2025, the cloud earned more than the whole company, which means everything else at Amazon, taken together, lost money.

Under a fifth of Amazon's sales, more than half of its operating income

Amazon reports its business in three segments : North America, International and AWS. AWS rents computing power, storage and databases to companies, start-ups, governments and universities. The other two segments are what most people picture as Amazon : the online and physical stores, sales by outside sellers, advertising and subscriptions like Prime.

The measure here is operating income : what is left of sales after the costs of running the business, before interest, investment gains and losses, and tax. It is a kind of profit, but not the bottom line (more on that below).

In 2025, AWS had $128.7 billion of sales out of Amazon's $716.9 billion, which is 18%. Its operating income was $45.6 billion out of $80.0 billion, which is 57%. In every year from 2014 to 2025, AWS made under a fifth of Amazon's sales and more than half of its operating income. The 57% for 2025 is actually the lowest share in that stretch.

AWS made 18% of Amazon's sales but 57% of its operating income · 2025, in billions of dollars : AWS had $128.7 of Amazon's $716.9 sales and $45.6 of its $80.0 operating income · Sales · Operating income · AWS · Rest of Amazon · $128.7 billion · $588.2 billion · $45.6 billion · $34.4 billion · Operat — 2025, in billions of dollars : AWS had $128.7 of Amazon's $716.9 sales and $45.6 of its $80.0 operating income

When a part is bigger than the whole

AWS is part of Amazon, so it can only earn more than all of Amazon if the rest of the company loses money. That happened three times, in 2014, 2017 and 2022. In what follows, all figures are operating income in dollars of each year, and "everything else" means North America plus International.

In 2014, AWS made $0.5 billion while Amazon as a whole made $0.2 billion, so everything else lost $280 million, or about $0.3 billion. In 2017, AWS made $4.3 billion and Amazon $4.1 billion, and everything else lost $225 million, or about $0.2 billion. In 2022, by far the biggest loss, AWS made $22.8 billion, Amazon $12.2 billion, and everything else lost $10.6 billion. That year has its own section below.

For comparison, in 2025 AWS made $45.6 billion out of Amazon's $80.0 billion, and everything else made $34.4 billion. In all the years other than those three, the rest of Amazon made money, but AWS still made most of the total.

Inside "everything else", the two segments behaved differently. North America lost money in only one year of the twelve : 2022. The International segment lost money in nine of the twelve years and made money only in 2020, 2024 and 2025. So the losses in 2014 and 2017 were International losses that North America's income didn't cover.

2022 : the year the cloud carried Amazon

In 2022, AWS made $22.8 billion of operating income and Amazon as a whole made $12.2 billion. Everything else lost $10.6 billion : North America lost $2.8 billion and International lost $7.7 billion.

Amazon's annual report for 2022 (its 10-K filing) gives the same main reason for North America's swing into a loss and for International's loss widening compared with 2021. It says they were "primarily due to increased fulfillment and shipping costs, due in part to increases in investments in our fulfillment network, transportation costs, and wage rates and incentives", plus higher technology and content costs. That year Amazon also recorded about $1.1 billion of write-downs, mostly on physical stores.

In his 2022 letter to shareholders, CEO Andy Jassy described the background. During the early pandemic, demand grew so fast that Amazon had to double the fulfillment center footprint it had built over 25 years, in "about two years". He wrote that a network grown that fast needed a lot of optimizing, and he called the rising cost of getting a product to a customer a critical challenge. This is Amazon's own account. It names one pressure, not a full explanation.

Then the rest of Amazon bounced back

From 2022 to 2025, operating income from everything else rose by $45.0 billion, from a $10.6 billion loss to $34.4 billion. Over the same years, AWS's operating income grew by $22.8 billion. The rest of Amazon added more than AWS did, and AWS's share of the total fell to 57%.

Amazon's 10-K for 2025 credits that year's increases in North America and International, compared with 2024, mainly to more units sold and more advertising sales, partly offset by higher costs. The 2025 figures also include one-off charges, such as a $2.5 billion charge for settling a lawsuit with the US Federal Trade Commission, booked in the North America segment.

From 2022 to 2025, the rest of Amazon added more operating income than AWS · Increase in operating income from 2022 to 2025, in billions of dollars · Rest of Amazon · AWS · +$45.0 billion · +$22.8 billion · The rest of Amazon went from a $10.6 billion loss to $34.4 billion. It means North America pl — Increase in operating income from 2022 to 2025, in billions of dollars

Why AWS's 35 cents per sales dollar and the rest of Amazon's 6 cents don't compare directly

In 2025, each dollar of AWS sales left about 35 cents of operating income. Each dollar of sales in the rest of Amazon ($588.2 billion in all) left about 6 cents.

One thing that makes these two numbers hard to compare is how sales are counted. When Amazon sells a product itself, its sales include the full price of the item. When an outside seller makes the sale, Amazon counts only its fees. AWS sales are all services. So the rest of Amazon's sales include goods it buys and resells, and its margin is measured on a much bigger base. Amazon's filings do not say how much of the gap this explains. The cents per dollar show how much each part kept from what it reported as sales, not which business is run better.

Accounting choices move the numbers too

All figures are as Amazon reported them, and some of the year-to-year changes come from accounting estimates. One that keeps coming back is how many years servers are expected to last, which sets how much of their cost is charged each year :

2022 : Amazon lengthened server lives from four to five years and networking equipment from five to six. This cut depreciation and amortization expense by $3.6 billion company-wide. Amazon names it as one reason AWS's operating income rose that year.

2024 : Server lives went from five to six years, cutting depreciation and amortization expense by $3.2 billion, mainly in AWS.

2025 : Some servers and networking equipment went back from six to five years. Amazon cited the fast pace of development in AI. This added $1.4 billion of depreciation and amortization expense, mainly in AWS.

Changing how long servers are expected to last moved Amazon's expenses by billions · Change in yearly depreciation and amortization expense from each change to expected equipment lives, in billions of dollars · No change in expense · 2022 : lives lengthened · 2024 : lives lengthened · 2025 : some li — Change in yearly depreciation and amortization expense from each change to expected equipment lives, in billions of dollars

What this does not show

Operating income is not the bottom line. Net income, after interest, investments and tax, can tell a different story. In 2022, Amazon reported a net loss of $2.7 billion. That figure includes a $12.7 billion loss in the market value of its shares in Rivian Automotive, which sits outside operating income.

The split follows Amazon's own rules. Shared costs, such as technology and infrastructure, are divided among the segments based on usage, by methods Amazon sets and can change.

These are yearly figures in dollars of each year, not adjusted for inflation. That matters when comparing growth across years. The shares compare sales and income from the same year.

How this was made

We read the segment tables in Amazon's 10-K annual reports for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2024 and 2025. Each report covers three years. Where reports overlapped, they gave the same figures. In every year, the three segments add up exactly to Amazon's total, and the totals match the figures Amazon filed in machine-readable form with the SEC, the US securities regulator. 2014 comes from the 2016 report, which states it on the same basis as later years. The 2015 report used an older segment measure, so we did not use it. Amazon's explanations of 2022 come from its 10-K for 2022.