Amazon Is Doing What It Does Best: Making Lots and Lots of Money From the Echo to Prime to Music, Amazon is raking it in.

By Nicole Lee

This story originally appeared on Engadget

Abhishek Chinnappa | Reuters

With the first quarterly earnings report of 2018, Amazon shows no sign of slowing down. It reported sales of $51 billion in the past few months, which is an increase of 43 percent from this time last year.

As revealed last week, Amazon also reported that subscriptions for Amazon Music and Amazon Music Unlimited more than doubled in the past six months. Seeing as streaming music is a big part of the Echo experience, the rise in subscriptions is likely a result of an increase in Echo sales as well. As is typical with the online retail giant, it doesn't usually break down revenue by division. But we do know that of that $51 billion, $32 billion was from product sales, while $19 billion was from the sale of services.

Amazon also continues to see its AWS cloud storage solution as a huge asset, especially since it's grown substantially in the past few months. "AWS lets developers do more and be nimbler, and it continues to get even better every day," said CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement.

This is a very positive outlook of the company, especially on the heels of Bezos's mention that Amazon now has over 100 million paid Prime subscribers globally. It's also been busy investing in other areas, like the acquisition of Ring, a kid-friendly Alexa and potentially a cube-shaped update to its Fire TV. It's not afraid of exploring uncharted territory either, such as delivering packages directly to your car.

Still, Amazon hasn't always had it easy. It had to fix an exploit where Alexa could listen in and record your private conversations and it's recently faced a barrage of criticism from President Donald Trump for not paying its share of taxes and for putting local retailers out of business.

Update: Amazon has announced that the annual fee for Prime will go up to $119. It will also renew the deal it has with the NFL for Thursday Night Football through 2019.

Nicole Lee

Senior Editor for Engadget

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Engadget. She lives in San Francisco .

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Devices

The Last Pen You'll Ever Have to Buy — Never Run Out of Ink Again With the ForeverPen

The world's smallest inkless pen is durable, portable, and built to last.

Leadership

The End of Bureaucracy — How Leadership Must Evolve in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

What if bureaucracy, the very system designed to maintain order, is now the greatest obstacle to progress?

Devices

Save 45% on an iPad Air With This Holiday Sale

You got gifts for everyone else—now it's time to treat yourself.

Business News

A New Hampshire City Was Named the Hottest Housing Market in the U.S. This Year. Here's the Top 10 for 2024.

Zillow released its annual lists featuring the top housing markets, small towns, coastal cities, and geographic regions. Here's a look at the top real estate markets and towns in 2024.

Side Hustle

After This 26-Year-Old Got Hooked on ChatGPT, He Built a 'Simple' Side Hustle Around the Bot That Brings In $4,000 a Month

Dhanvin Siriam wanted to build something that made revenue from ChatGPT, and once he did, he says, "It just caught on."