Amazon Gains On Goldman Note, AWS Re:Invent Heats Up

Shares of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose Tuesday morning after Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) reaffirmed its buy rating for the online retail and cloud hosting behemoth as its AWS re:Invent innovation conference kicks into full gear.

Goldman analyst Heath Terry reiterated his “Buy” rating for Amazon in a note to clients on Tuesday. The analyst also raised his target price to $1,450 per share from $1,300 per share. The new target would mark a 21% upside over the next 12 months, based on Monday’s closing price of $1,195.83 per share.

Terry noted that he expects speedy innovation from Amazon in the coming months, which he projects the company will begin to introduce during Amazon Web Services’ global customer and partner conference. Amazon Web Services is the company’s on-demand cloud computing division, which is geared towards companies, governments, and individuals

AWS re:Invent 2017 started Sunday night in Las Vegas and is set to run through Saturday, Dec. 1. The conference has historically been a platform for Amazon to introduce new products, partnerships, and services for its highly important web services division.

Terry noted that the number of announcements in 2016 jumped to 15 after Amazon made less than ten each during the first three years of the conference. "We continue to believe Amazon's pace of innovation, increasing pricing flexibility, and an aging corporate technology base, will drive the ongoing shift of workloads into the cloud," Terry noted.

Amazon Web Services boasts that it can support almost any size workload and currently has over one million active customers in 190 countries. AWS has worked with Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) , Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) , Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) , Airbnb, PBS, and many more big names.

The Goldman analysts also touched on the success and growth of Amazon’s more consumer-facing retail businesses. He pointed to the acquisition of Whole Foods and new ventures into the world of healthcare and logistics as reasons to be even more excited about Amazon’s future.

AWS re:Invent Update

Amazon has already introduced a few new offerings at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. One of the first new services is Amazon Sumerian, which is designed to make it easier for developers to build virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D applications for an array of platforms and devices.

Don't miss the Global Partner Summit at #reInvent 2017 with Terry Wise, VP of Global Alliances, Ecosystems & Channels @AWS_Partners pic.twitter.com/UmoDfawQqS

— AWS re:Invent (@AWSreInvent) November 28, 2017

What’s more, Amazon announced a new partnership with Time-Warner’s (NYSE:TWX) Turner division that will see Turner use Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider.

On top of that, the company introduced five new AWS Elemental Media Services: MediaConvert, MediaLive, MediaPackage, MediaTailor, and MediaStore. According to an Amazon company statement, the new Element services are an “integrated suite of services that make it easy for video providers of all kinds to create reliable, flexible, and scalable video offerings in the cloud.”

Amazon also already announced an expanded partnership with the popular cloud platform VMware, which is a subsidiary of Dell Technologies (NYSE:DVMT) .

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