Amazon (AMZN) to Scale Up AWS With New Office in Greece

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Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) is gradually expanding presence in Europe.

Recently, it announced that its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened a new office in Greece in a bid to expand cloud operations in the country.

The financial terms of the deal have not been revealed yet.

The latest move is in sync with the e-commerce giant’s strengthening footprint in Greece. It is in line with the company’s aim of providing support to a number of companies and public sector agencies using cloud services.

AWS Expansion Continues

AWS is an integral part of the company. Moreover, the company is gaining from well-performing AWS, which holds a dominant position in the booming cloud market. This has been aiding it in gaining investor confidence for quite some time now.

Coming to price performance, Amazon has returned 66.4% in the past year compared with the industry’s rally of 42.2%.

We note that with the growing demand for cloud-based technologies among the existing AWS users, the service is well poised for growth.

In Greece, AWS already provides cloud computing services to a number of companies including Wind Hellas, PAOK FC and a number of public sector organizations.

We note that the new office will strengthen AWS operations, which remain crucial for Amazon. Hence, the latest move holds promise as it is likely to drive AWS performance.

Rising Cloud Competition

In addition to Amazon Web Services, another dominant player in the public cloud market is Redmond, WA-headquartered Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , which is also gaining strong traction in the cloud computing space on the back of robust Azure.

Recently, in October, Microsoft announced plans to build a data centre hub in Greece to expand presence therein.

Moreover, Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) Google Cloud, International Business Machines’ (IBM - Free Report) cloud platform, IBM Cloud and Alibaba Cloud market cannot be ignored.

Moreover, these competitors — especially Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — are leaving no stone unturned to increase their market share and reduce the gap with AWS.

Nevertheless, AWS’ persistent efforts toward expansion of the product and services portfolio are likely to have helped it in sustaining momentum in this highly competitive scenario.

Currently, Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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