Amazon posts third successive record-breaking profit

Amazon's star continues to rise as the ecommerce giant posted a third consecutive record-breaking profit in its second quarter results released on Thursday.

Revenue was up 31%, with a 58% rise in its Amazon Web Services cloud unit. Shares rose 2% in afterhours trading on Thursday.

According to Forbes, founder Jeff Bezos is now the world's third richest man after the strong earnings report, behind only Bill Gates and Amancio Ortega. Bezos owns 18% of Amazon's shares, with his fortune estimated at $65.3bn.

Profit for the company climbed from $92mn from the same quarter in 2015, to a whopping $857mn the quarter to July this year. Shares in the company have spiked 50% since February of this year.

Bezos pointed towards the company's development in markets such as India as being key to its success.

"It's been a busy few months for Amazon around the world, and particularly in India - where we launched a new [Amazon Web Services] Region, introduced Prime with unlimited free shipping, and announced that Prime Video is coming soon," said Bezos.

Amazon held its second ever "Prime Day" earlier in July and it was reported that it was the company's largest ever sales day. It allowed customers who avail of their Prime membership service to receive big discounts on products.

A lengthy period of investments and quarterly losses had previously left investors concerned about Amazon's long term profitability, but five consecutive quarters in the black has quashed the notion. CFO Brian Olavsky says its heavy investments will continue.

“We’re very happy with the operational performance of the business,” he said during a call with reporters.

Amazon's cloud computing unit also spiked. Revenue for Amazon Web Services climbed 58.2% to $2.89bn, beating analysts' expectations of $2.83bn. That section of the business is central to a lot of investors' faith, as it is fast becoming the preferred choice for many startups and large corporations.

Earlier this month, it announced a partnership with US bank Wells Fargo to offer discounts on student loans for members of its Prime Student services.

In addition, the company also launched an online grocery store in the United Kingdom in order to boost its presence there.