Online retailer Amazon has said that earnings exceeded expectations in its second quarter, strengthened by its cloud computing arm.

Figures show that earnings of $857 million (£650 million) with sales rising 31% to $30.4 billion (£23 billion) which beat last year’s $23.2 billion (£17.6 billion) for the same time and more than analyst forecasts of $29.6 billion (£22.4 billion), whilst revenue from Amazon Web Services was $2.89 billion (£2.19 billion) a massive increase of 58.2%.

Adding to its success, Amazon said that it’s second Prime Day recorded its biggest ever sales day and has generally had a big year in the UK, especially with the expansion of Prime Now, Amazon Dash and AmazonFresh service, as well as joining forces with the UK government to trail drone deliveries.

A spokesman for Amazon said, “In the UK we recently announced plans to create a further 1,000 permanent jobs across Britain this year, on top of 2500 permanent roles previously  announced in January, as we prepare for the festive season.”

“We now plan to create more than 3500 permanent full-time jobs in the UK this year to bring the total number of full time permanent employees to more than 15,500 by the end of this year."