Amazon Web Services CEO: We're on track to hit $100 billion in sales in 2024

What's in the clouds for Amazon's (AMZN) lucrative AWS business: $100 billion in 2024 sales.

"This quarter, we just announced a few days ago that AWS did hit the $100 billion annualized revenue run rate milestone — not many tech companies have done that," AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said on the Opening Bid podcast (video above).

Added Selipsky, "I think it's a notable milestone."

Powered by voracious demand for generative AI services and the ongoing push to move workloads to the cloud, Amazon's enterprise cloud operation is fresh off a bang-up first quarter.

AWS sales accelerated for the second straight quarter, rising 17% year over year to $25 billion. The business — which Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hired Selipsky to run in 2021 — saw operating profits nearly double to $9.4 billion.

The division represented about 62% of Amazon's Q1 operating profits.

Selipsky contends that with 85% of companies still storing their data on-premise, the tailwinds for AWS are just beginning to gust.

"We're optimistic about the business outlook for AWS and I think it can continue to grow really rapidly. I don't really see an upper limit on it," Selipsky says. "Of course it's not our birthright, it's not guaranteed. We'll only be as successful as what we do tomorrow for customers."

The avid water skier and wine aficionado says he doesn't wake up each day thinking about crushing rivals Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL). Rather, he spends his time plotting out how to keep customers happy — part of the "Day One" culture etched into the company by founder Jeff Bezos.

Wall Street believes Selipsky and his AWS team will continue to be the main drivers of Amazon's profits — and stock price.

"Drivers [of AWS] are strong and sustainable — the ending of cost optimization cycles, core cloud demand, and Gen AI workloads that are amounting to a multi-billion revenue run rate," Evercore ISI tech analyst Mark Mahaney said in a client note following Amazon's earnings.

Mahaney continued, "Key is that this marked the first quarter since the third quarter of 2022 that AWS dollar revenue growth surpassed that of [Microsoft] Azure, which changes the cloud industry leadership narrative."

Something else to watch: The tech trade

The Magnificent Seven trade — Microsoft, Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Alphabet, Amazon, Meta (META), and Tesla (TSLA) — has swung back to life amid strong earnings from the aforementioned Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft. So, will the momentum continue for these high beta tech names?

Veteran investors Troy Gayeski and Jay Woods share their insight on Episode 1 of the Opening Bid podcast below.

Catch all Opening Bid episodes on Yahoo Finance, YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music and iHeartmedia.

Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. He is also the host of the "Opening Bid" podcast. Follow Sozzi on Twitter/X @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com. Are you a CEO and want to come on Yahoo Finance Live? Email Brian Sozzi.

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