Amazon Web Services is one of the most popular services that StatusGator users subscribe to so they can be among the first to learn if AWS or any of its components or regions experience downtime.

Previously, we already explored the least reliable AWS Region, and we continue to explore the most popular cloud computing platform.

Here are facts on Amazon Web Services as of 2024 split into categories.

General AWS Stats and Facts

Before jumping into categories, here are some general AWS stats and facts of interest.

When was AWS founded?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) was launched in 2006 by Amazon¹. However, AWS was pursued by Amazon earlier than this. The company was interested in cloud services back in 2003 before AWS’ launch three years later.

How many active users does Amazon Web Services have?

AWS has over 1.45 million business users². Around 10% of these users are enterprise-scale customers³, with the rest being small and medium-sized businesses, making it a widely adopted cloud platform with a diverse user base.

Amazon Web Services provides on-demand cloud platforms and APIs to customers through the pay-as-you-go model.⁴

Statista, the statistics portal for market data, research, and studies, reported that 76% of respondents from their global survey indicated that they run apps on the AWS platform.⁵

How many services does AWS offer?

AWS offers over 200 fully featured services.⁶

AWS provides a wide range of global cloud-based services, encompassing computing, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security, and enterprise applications.

What are the most popular AWS services?

In 2024, the 5 most popular AWS services are:

Amazon EC2, scalable virtual servers for running applications in the cloud.
Amazon S3 is a highly durable object storage for data and file storage.
Amazon RDS managed relational databases with various engine options.
Amazon SNS is a service for sending notifications and messages to recipients.
Amazon Lambda is a serverless computing platform for running code in response to events.

How many data centers does AWS have?

AWS has 100+ data centers.⁷ This covers 32 geographical regions, over 400 edge zones, and 245 countries and territories.⁸

How many availability zones does AWS have?

Currently, there are 102 availability zones⁹. However, AWS is constantly expanding, despite AWS infrastructure already being available in 245 countries and territories and having 550 points of presence¹⁰. Furthermore, AWS plans to launch 15 more availability zones across five more AWS Regions.¹¹

Facts and stats on AWS services

Before we go into some facts about AWS based on industry, we wanted to provide you with some more specific, numbers-based facts and figures about AWS.

AWS launched over 3,300 new features and services in 2022 alone.¹²

AWS is continuously expanding its global infrastructure to ensure low latency by being near users.¹³

Amazon launched CodeWhisperer¹⁴, CodeCatalyst, Security Lake, and Bedrock ¹⁵ in 2023.¹⁶

AWS’s most popular services

The top 3 most popular AWS services are Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS.¹⁷While this changes each year, these are the stats in 2023.

AWS’s most used service

One of AWS’s most used services is Amazon EC2, which allows customers to create virtual machines for their strategic projects, reducing the time spent on server maintenance.¹⁸

Another significant AWS service is Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), a secure file storage service.¹⁹

The first-ever AWS service

The first ever AWS infrastructure service for public use was the Simple Queue Service (SQS).²⁰

Facts and Stats on AWS Chips

AWS’ first-ever chip

AWS launched its first inference chip, Inferentia, in 2019.²¹

The Inferentia2 chip offers up to four times higher throughput and ten times lower latency than the first Inferentia processor.²²

AWS’ first training chip

AWS launched its first training chip, Trainium, in 2022.²³

AWS’ Graviton3 chip

In 2018, AWS released the first version of Graviton for open-source and non-performance-critical scripting workloads as part of its A1 instance family.

AWS invested in chip development a few years ago, including the Graviton series.²⁴ Graviton2-based compute instances deliver up to 40% better price performance than x86-based instances.²⁵

Graviton3 chips provide 25% better performance than Graviton2 processors.²⁶ As a result of this, Trainium-based instances are up to 140% faster than GPU-based instances at up to 70% lower cost.²⁷

AWS business stats and facts

Next up in our list of AWS facts and stats are some facts related to the business side of AWS. So, let’s dive in.

AWS’ share in Amazon’s profit

AWS accounts for the majority of Amazon’s operating profit.²⁸ AWS is now an $85B annual revenue run rate business.²⁹

Fortune 100 organizations rely on AWS

90+% of Fortune 100 organizations use AWS Partner Network to develop solutions for customers.³⁰

AWS reduces their service prices

AWS has cut the cost of its services 67 times since its launch.³¹

AWS has more cloud infrastructure than their competitors

Compared to its 14 competitors, AWS has 5 times more deployed cloud infrastructure in total.³²

AWS is a cloud computing leader

AWS grew 29% year-over-year in 2022 on a $62 billion revenue base.³³ AWS is a leader in the cloud computing market with a 32% market share in the sphere worldwide as of Q4 2022.³⁴ Statista projected AWS to take over 49% market share as a hyper-scale vendor leading global infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) markets.³⁵

AWS made a deal with the CIA

In 2013, AWS and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made a $600 million deal to develop AWS cloud computing service.³⁶

AWS is used in news media and entertainment

The subsecond metering model of AWS Lambda helped Asianet News Media & Entertainment, a media group, to reduce its ops expenditures by 50%.³⁷

AWS has grown significantly since 2008

AWS was a small business in 2008 and required substantial capital investment.³⁸

AWS is designed for customers

AWS helps customers optimize their spending during uncertain economic times.³⁹ AWS has transformed how customers manage their technology infrastructure.⁴⁰

Netflix is one of AWS’ largest customers

Netflix, a video streaming service, is one of AWS’s largest customers. Netflix uses AWS to store its content on servers worldwide.⁴¹

AWS has a range of well-known clients

Among AWS’s notable clients are Disney, BBC, Baidy, the UK Ministry of Justice, Kellogg’s, Guardian News and Media, and the European Space Agency.⁴²

AWS is one of the most popular cloud infrastructures since 2020

AWS was ranked as one of the most popular public cloud infrastructure and platform services for running applications worldwide in 2020, ahead of competitors like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud services.⁴³

AWS employees were affected by mass layoffs

AWS employees were affected by the mass layoffs in March 2023 – 27,000 Amazon employees were laid off in total.⁴⁴

Educational

Due to its utility in schools (particularly K-12 education) and universities, there are several interesting facts about AWS relating to education.

AWS offers certifications and courses

AWS offers 12 certifications for cloud practitioners, architects, developers, and operations roles.⁴⁵ Also, the AWS Skill Builder library offers 600+ digital courses and learning plans to help students and staff.⁴⁶

AWS runs the AI hackathon

AWS announced its first AI hackathon in Q3 2018.⁴⁷ The 1st prize winner got a $5,000 payout and $2,500 worth of AWS credits.⁴⁸

AWS is the host of the re:Invent conference

AWS hosts an annual cloud computing conference – re:Invent.⁴⁹ The first-ever re:Invent conference took place on November 27, 2012, in Las Vegas.⁵⁰

AWS launched the ASDI Global Hackathon

In 2022, AWS launched its first Global Hackathon as Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI).⁵¹ Also, the AWS (ASDI) Global Hackathon was launched as a part of AWS’ collaboration with the International Research Centre in Artificial Intelligence under UNESCO.⁵²

The ASDI Global Hackathon by AWS became popular

The ASDI Global Hackathon in 2022 provided $100K in prizes.⁵³ There were 11 judges at the ASDI Global Hackathon who recognized six projects.⁵⁴ The 2023 AWS Hackathon in Sweden was dedicated to hydroponics and sustainable agriculture.⁵⁵

AWS hosts global events

AWS held 21 summits worldwide in 2023.⁵⁶

Financial Facts and Stats

Given its size and rate of growth, it should be no surprise that there have been many interesting financial facts about AWS over the years.

From 2013 till 2022, the annual revenue of AWS cloud computing and hosting solutions has been continually increasing.⁵⁷ Let’s see how AWS has grown over the past few years through the financial stats.

AWS net sales in 2020

In 2020, AWS generated $45 billion in net sales.⁵⁸

AWS revenue in 2021

AWS achieved a 32% revenue growth in Q1 2021⁵⁹ and it rose to 37% in Q2.⁶⁰

Their annual revenue in 2021 was $62.2 billion.⁶¹

AWS net sales in 2022

AWS net sales in 2022 are estimated at $80 billion⁶², which is 45% higher compared to 2020.⁶³

AWS revenue in 2022

In Q4 2022, AWS generated revenue from cloud computing and hosting of approximately $21 billion.⁶⁴

In Q4 2022, the revenues of AWS dropped to 20%, marking the lowest for the year.⁶⁵

AWS growth stats in 2023

Since the revenues dropped in Q4 2022, there are signs that AWS has been doing better and continued to grow. Currently, AWS’s year-on-year revenue growth is 20%.⁶⁶

AWS financial stats in Q1 2023

In Q1 2023, AWS sales increased 16% year-over-year to $21.4 billion.⁶⁷

AWS’s operating income in Q1 2023 was $5.1 billion, compared with an operating income of $6.5 billion in Q1 2022.⁶⁸

AWS financial stats in Q2 2023

As for Q2 2023, AWS sales increased 12% year-over-year to $22.1 billion.⁶⁹

Operating income in Q2 2023 was $5.4 billion, compared with operating income of $5.7 billion in Q2 2022.⁷⁰

AWS financial stats in Q3 2023

For Q3 2023⁷¹, AWS sales increased $143.1 billion in the third quarter, compared with $127.1 billion in the third quarter of 2022. Operating income increased to $11.2 billion in the third quarter, compared with $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2022.⁷²

Outages

Finally, there are plenty of facts about outages and downtime when it comes to AWS. With every infrastructure comes problems, but if you want to learn more, take a look at our article.

However, if you want a general overview, here are some key outage facts about AWS.

AWS S3 outage in 2017

A massive AWS S3 outage occurred in 2017, and lasted for four hours, affecting Twilio, PagerDuty, Atlassian, GitHub, and many others.⁷³

AWS massive outage in 2021

The recent massive outage occurred in December 2021, lasting for 6 hours, and affected 1,000 AWS clients.⁷⁴

AWS massive outage in 2023

The biggest AWS outage in 2023 occurred in June and lasted for over 2 hours, affecting multiple AWS services.⁷⁵

AWS’ least reliable region

We researched the uptime across AWS Regions and found which one had the most outages in 2022. So, the least reliable AWS Region is the US East (Northern Virginia).⁷⁶

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FAQs on AWS

Q: What is the AWS most used service?

A: AWS’ most used services are Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS.

Q: How many users does AWS have?

A: AWS has more than 1.45 million active business users worldwide.

Q: How many AWS developers are there?

A: AWS estimates over 1 million certified professionals and the number is growing at a 29% rate each year.

Q: What city-state is AWS us-east-1 in?

A: “us-east-1,” also known as “US East (N. Virginia),” is one of AWS’s oldest and most popular regions. Situated in Ashburn, Virginia, it’s a hotspot for data centers and internet infrastructure. Due to its strategically chosen location to be near Washington D.C., US-east-1 is easily accessible to government agencies and businesses.

Q: What city-state is AWS us-west-2 in?

A: The AWS region “us-west-2” is located in Oregon, in the United States. The region code “us-west-2” refers to the US West (Oregon) region in the AWS ecosystem. The region code helps distinguish it from other regions within the United States and globally.

Q: Why does the state government need data breach notifications for AWS?

A: The state government needs data-breach notifications for AWS (Amazon Web Services) for the following reasons:

Security and Privacy: AWS notifications are crucial for protecting citizens’ personal data by alerting the government to breaches and enabling quick action to minimize harm.
Compliance: AWS helps governments comply with data breach notification laws by automating the process of identifying and notifying affected parties.
Rapid Response: Timely alerts from AWS allow governments to respond swiftly to breaches, reducing data exposure and facilitating resolution.
Trust-Building: Data breaches can erode public trust, but AWS notifications help demonstrate transparency and commitment to data protection, rebuilding trust with citizens.

Overall, data breach notifications for AWS equip state governments with the necessary tools to effectively respond to and mitigate the impact of data breaches, ensuring the security, privacy, compliance, and trustworthiness of citizens’ data.

Q: Who uses Amazon Web Services?

A: AWS has a variety of users, and is used by startups, enterprises, and government agencies worldwide. It provides a wide range of services, making it a popular choice for applications, data storage, and scalability across various industries.

AWS is also essential in sectors such as healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and media – offering secure, compliant, and reliable solutions. It’s also embraced by IT professionals and software developers for its ease of use and diverse capabilities, making it a go-to option for cloud computing needs.

Q: What are the top 5 AWS services?

A: In 2023, the 5 most popular AWS services are:

Amazon EC2: Scalable virtual servers for running applications in the cloud.
Amazon S3: Highly durable object storage for data and file storage.
Amazon RDS: Managed relational databases with various engine options.
Amazon SNS: Service for sending notifications and messages to recipients.
Amazon Lambda: Serverless computing platform for running code in response to events.

However, this can change according to time.

Q: Who are some popular AWS clients?

A: Some well-known companies that have publicly acknowledged their usage of AWS include:

Netflix: Netflix relies heavily on AWS for its streaming services, content delivery, and data analytics.
Airbnb: AWS helps Airbnb scale its infrastructure and handle the vast amount of data its booking platform generates.
Spotify: Spotify utilizes AWS to support its music streaming service and deliver personalized recommendations to its users.
Lyft: Lyft runs its backend operations on AWS, powering its ride-hailing platform and handling millions of requests daily.
Coinbase: As a popular cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase uses AWS to ensure secure and reliable transactions for its users.

Q: What are some AWS trends in 2023?

A: In 2023, notable trends in the AWS landscape include the use of AWS technology by Amazon to create immersive shopping experiences with augmented and virtual reality, increased emphasis on adaptive security measures like the Digital Immune System (DIS) powered by AI, and AWS supporting serverless integration for a variety of businesses and industries.

There is also a significant focus on data management and analytics. Organizations are actively working on building unified data platforms on AWS to break down data silos and centralize analytics, enabling more accessible business insights and real-time applications.

These trends reflect a shifting landscape towards interactive e-commerce, advanced security solutions, and efficient data utilization in the AWS environment.

Q: What company is AWS?

A: AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon, is a cloud computing platform that provides various services, including computing power, database storage, content delivery, and other functionalities, to businesses and individuals. This includes Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Lambda, among many other popular services.

Q: Who are AWS’s biggest customers?

A: Some well-known companies that have publicly acknowledged their usage of AWS include:

Netflix: Netflix relies heavily on AWS for its streaming services, content delivery, and data analytics.
Airbnb: AWS helps Airbnb scale its infrastructure and handle the vast amount of data its booking platform generates.
Spotify: Spotify utilizes AWS to support its music streaming service and deliver personalized recommendations to its users.
Lyft: Lyft runs its backend operations on AWS, powering its ride-hailing platform and handling millions of requests daily.
Coinbase: As a popular cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase uses AWS to ensure secure and reliable transactions for its users.

Q: How many people work in AWS?

A: As of 2022, AWS’s LinkedIn stated that it had over 136,000 employees worldwide. While no figure is available for 2023, we do know that AWS reported over 9,000 layoffs in March 2023. Based on this data, we can estimate anywhere between 136,000-150,000.

Q: How many AWS services are there?

A: There are over 200 AWS services worldwide, with different regions offering different services. These services benefit a wide array of industries, corporations, and technologies.

Q: What is the AWS hackathon?

A: The AWS Hackathon is a competitive event where teams of developers and tech enthusiasts use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create innovative solutions based on a specific challenge or theme within a limited timeframe. These events aim to promote innovation, collaboration, and the use of AWS services, often featuring prizes and recognition for the best projects. AWS Hackathons provide a platform for participants to learn, experiment, and demonstrate their skills while using cloud technology to address real-world problems.

Q: What is the total number of AWS services?

A: There are 200+ services offered by AWS across 32 geographical AWS regions.

Q: What is the total number of active AWS Regions?

A: As of 2023, AWS has the following 32 active regions:

US East (N. Virginia)
US East (Ohio)
US West (N. California)
US West (Oregon)
Africa (Cape Town)
Asia Pacific (Hong Kong)
Asia Pacific (Hyderabad)
Asia Pacific (Jakarta)
Asia Pacific (Melbourne)
Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
Asia Pacific (Osaka-Local)
Asia Pacific (Seoul)
Asia Pacific (Singapore)
Asia Pacific (Sydney)
Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
Canada (Central)
Europe (Frankfurt)
Europe (Ireland)
Europe (London)
Europe (Milan)
Europe (Paris)
Europe (Spain)
Europe (Zurich)
Europe (Stockholm)
Israel (Tel Aviv)
Middle East (Bahrain)
Middle East (UAE)
South America (São Paulo)
AWS GovCloud (US-East)
AWS GovCloud (US-West)
China (Beijing)
China (Ningxia)

Q: How many times has AWS reduced its prices?

A: Amazon Web Services has a history of making frequent price reductions to offer cost-effective cloud services. These reductions have occurred multiple times since AWS’s launch in 2006, with adjustments made on specific services or regions to pass cost savings to customers. Reports have stated price increases every year since 209, with an apparent hike of 23% (on average) in 2023.

Q: What are the largest AWS customers?

A: Netflix, Airbnb, Reddit, Slack, and Pinterest, among countless others, use AWS to ensure that they can handle their user traffic, store and process data efficiently, and provide a reliable user experience. These companies are well-known globally.

Q: What are some AWS statistics in 2023?

A: Some notable AWS statistics (as found by Simplilearn.com) in 2023 are:

AWS Total Users: AWS boasts over 1 million active users, with approximately 10 percent being enterprise-scale customers and the majority consisting of small and medium-sized businesses.
AWS Partner Network: The AWS Partner Network (APN) is leveraged by most Fortune 500 enterprises and over 90 percent of the Fortune 100 organizations to develop services and solutions. Prominent brands like Facebook, Netflix, Adobe, and BBC rely on the APN for their projects.
AWS Marketplace: The AWS Marketplace features over 7,000 data products and software listings, serving as a platform for data providers and sellers to curate relevant third-party offerings.
AWS Is the top IaaS Player: According to Gartner Inc., AWS maintains its dominance in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) space with a 45% market share, ahead of Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, and Tencent.

Q: What is AWS’s market share in 2023?

A: In the cloud infrastructure services market, as of the fourth quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) held the top position with a 32 percent market share. Microsoft Azure followed with a 23% market share, and Google Cloud ranked third with a 10 percent market share. These three vendors dominate the cloud market, with AWS as the leader in terms of market share.

Q: What websites use AWS?

A: Numerous prominent websites rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their infrastructure and hosting needs. Notable examples include:

Netflix, a popular streaming platform, depends on AWS to efficiently deliver video content globally.
Airbnb, an online marketplace for vacation rentals, utilizes AWS to manage vast data and booking requests.
Reddit, a social news aggregation platform, uses AWS for scaling and managing user-generated content.
Slack, a team collaboration tool, hosts its communication platform on AWS for real-time messaging.
Pinterest, a visual discovery platform, leverages AWS for hosting and content delivery, handling a large volume of images and user-generated content.

AWS is a popular choice for websites across various industries due to its scalability, reliability, and comprehensive suite of cloud services. This allows websites to focus on their core functionality while relying on AWS to handle their underlying infrastructure.”

Q: How many AWS certifications are there?

A: AWS provides a range of 12 certifications, including a foundational certification, three certifications at the associate level, two at the professional level, and six specialty certifications.

Q: Who uses AWS?

A: Amazon Web Services (AWS) serves a diverse user base, including businesses spanning various industries, startups, developers, data scientists, and government organizations. Businesses rely on AWS for cost-effective and scalable solutions, while startups benefit from its flexibility and pay-as-you-go model.

Developers access a rich platform for application deployment, and data scientists utilize AWS for large-scale data analysis and machine learning tasks. Government agencies trust AWS for secure hosting and compliance adherence. AWS’s versatility, scalability, and extensive services make it a preferred choice for a wide array of cloud computing needs.

Q: When was AWS founded?

A: AWS was founded in 2006, but planning and talks for the infrastructure began in 2003.

References

Q: What are the top 5 AWS services?

n 2023, the 5 most popular AWS services are: 1. Amazon EC2: Scalable virtual servers for running applications in the cloud. 2. Amazon S3: Highly durable object storage for data and file storage. 3. Amazon RDS: Managed relational databases with various engine options. 4. Amazon SNS: Service for sending notifications and messages to recipients. 5. Amazon Lambda: Serverless computing platform for running code in response to events. However, this can change according to time.