Amazon’s ad business is growing fast—faster than Facebook and Google when they were at comparable sizes, according to third-party data and an analysis of company filings. If this continues, it could fuel criticism from political circles about Amazon’s expanding tentacles in different businesses.
Amazon’s ad business crossed the billion-dollar mark in 2016, when it raked in about $1.5 billion in revenue, according to the research firm eMarketer. Its revenue has since increased by an average of 120% annually. That’s faster than Google, where ad revenue in 2003 crossed the $1 billion mark, and has since grown an average of 50% each year. Facebook’s ad revenue has grown an average of 69% annually since it first surpassed $1 billion in in 2010. (See above chart.)
