Amazon, the Seattle-based multinational technology company that orchestrates a global ecommerce marketplace, increased sales and profits in the second quarter of 2019, which ended June 30.

In a report issued late Thursday, Amazon said that its sales rose to $63.4 billion, a jump of about 20% over last year’s second quarter. Of that, $8.38 billion was attributable to Amazon Web Services, the company’s growing cloud-computing business.

Amazon is 8.8% of U.S. digital ad revenue, up *53%* from a year ago.

Amazon's U.S. ad business is now half as big as Facebook's U.S. ad business (FB has 19.6% of U.S. digital ad market).

source: emarketer @mims

— Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) July 26, 2019

In Q2 2019, net income was up to $2.62 billion, or $5.22 per diluted share, compared to $2.53 billion, or $5.07 in 2018. Operating income accelerated to $3.1 billion from $3 billion.

$AMZN Amazon Q2 19 Earnings Results:
- EPS: $5.22 (Estimate: $5.56)
- Revenue: $63.4B (Estimate: $62.46B)

— LiveSquawk (@LiveSquawk) July 25, 2019

Despite the gains, Amazon’s earnings came in below the predictions of analysts, which had forecast $5.56 per share. Amazon shares were down about 2.5% in after-hours trading Thursday, but had rebounded somewhat by Friday, being down only about 1.5% early in the day.

Amazon clawing its way back into the green after an earnings miss. Here's what the CFO just said on the conference call that has investors hitting "Add to Cart" $AMZN pic.twitter.com/6ZARjxrDP7

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) July 25, 2019

Costs associated with offering one-day shipping to Amazon Prime members contributed to holding earnings back. Still, the service is driving greater sales – and likely will continue to, making it a win in the long run, analysts say.

“Customers are responding to Prime’s move to one-day delivery — we’ve received a lot of positive feedback and seen accelerating sales growth,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Free one-day delivery is now available to Prime members on more than ten million items, and we’re just getting started.”

Amazon remains a focus for executives in the promotional products industry because of the potential threats and opportunities it presents to the ad specialty space. Indeed, Amazon already has a foothold in promo products.

Distributors expect Amazon to take a significant step into the promo market through an acquisition.

There are services like Amazon Custom, which focuses on personalized products, and Merch by Amazon, which is disrupting the licensed merchandise space with its print-on-demand model. Amazon has obtained patents that indicate an apparel creation and delivery process involving fabric printing, cutting, sewing and dispatch to a buyer in one computer-controlled service.