Amazons advertising business grew 20% in the second quarter [Video]

Amazon’s online advertising business brought in $12.77 billion during the second quarter, marking a 20% year-over-year increase, but missing analysts’ estimates.

Amazon disclosed the latest quarterly financial results of its online advertising unit on Thursday when it reported its second-quarter earnings. The company’s overall second-quarter sales were $147.98 billion, trailing analysts’ estimates of $148.56 billion.

Analysts were expecting Amazon to report online advertising sales of $13 billion. The company’s online advertising unit is still small relative to its core online retail business, but it is quickly growing and changing the digital advertising industry, in which Meta and Alphabet still dominate.

Indeed, Meta’s online advertising sales continue to improve after a tough 2022 when Apple introduced an iOS privacy update in 2021 that weakened the company’s ad-targeting system, along with smaller social media rivals such as Snap and Pinterest.

On Wednesday, however, Meta reported second-quarter earnings that beat expectations and indicated that the company has rehabilitatedits advertising …