Amazon's soaring profits have made Jeff Bezos the world's third-richest man

A NINEFOLD SURGE in Amazon’s profit – buoyed by its lucrative cloud-computing business – has helped lift founder Jeff Bezos’s personal fortune to the third-largest in the world.

Forbes magazine’s Billionaires’ List showed Bezos’s net worth had topped $65 billion, enough to leapfrog legendary investor Warren Buffet into the top-three positions globally.

Aside from his Amazon stake, the 52-year-old also heads the private space exploration Blue Origin and owns the Washington Post newspaper.

The e-commerce giant yesterday said its second-quarter profit surged as cloud computing and other services helped produce a fifth consecutive profit.

Net profit soared to $857 million from $92 million a year earlier. Revenues jumped 31% to $30.4 billion, Amazon said in stronger-than-expected results.

While Amazon developed a reputation for delivering little or no profit in its retail operations, its earnings have been growing over the past year as it expands into video and new delivery services and boosts its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The company has also been building loyalty with its Amazon Prime subscription service, which provides access to its online video and music as well as fast delivery for most items.

In addition, Amazon has been expanding globally, notably to India, where it is producing original content.

“The team in India is inventing at a torrid pace, and we’re very grateful to our Indian customers for their welcoming response,” Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos in a statement.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi

Prime numbers

Amazon has offered few details on its Prime subscriber base or the number of its Fire brand devices sold.

But analysts at Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimated Amazon Prime now has 63 million US members, spending on average about $1,200 per year, compared to about $500 per year for non-members.

In its statement, Amazon said its second annual ‘Prime day’ was the biggest day ever for the company and was also a record day for Amazon devices globally. It said worldwide orders grew by more than 60%.

Amazon has been bringing in customers to Prime by touting its streaming video, which competes with the likes of Netflix and Hulu. It has also been ramping up its delivery of groceries and fresh items in several markets, as it has been testing drones.

Earlier this week, it unveiled plans to test delivery drone technology in Britain, after US authorities announced rules that would preclude most robo-deliveries.

Additional reporting Peter Bodkin