Apple: Apple is Reducing Spend on AWS

Apr 25, 2019 | Posted by Eric Bell

AppleInsider reports that Apple's spending on Amazon Web Services is declining. This makes sense, as Apple continues to build their own data centers, their reliance on 3rd party cloud services will decline. That said, Apple needs to work out a better "edge" CDN solution to deliver their content closer to the end user. 

While Apple spent about $370 million on AWS in 2018, that's down dramatically versus $775 million in 2017, according to a source for the The Information —a point that AppleInsider made when the report was released on April 22. At the time, CNBC said that 2018 spending was $350 million, yet that the company is paying over $30 million per month in 2019 and likely to reach $360 million by the end of the year.

The $1.5 billion figure over five years, cited by CNBC if accurate, is lower than Apple has spent per annum in the past. In 2016 and 2017, Apple was said to have spent $1.05 billion and $1.08 billion respectively for cloud support services from other vendors.

AWS storage accounted for $700 million in 2017 and $270 million in 2018, a second Information source said. The company is allegedly increasing its AWS demands in other areas such as computing, paying $70 million for that in 2018 against $8 million in 2017.