Amazon to Open an Infrastructure Region in Israel

Amazon’s (AMZN) cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), announced its plans to set up an infrastructure region in Israel, starting in the first half of 2023.

With the new region, which is expected to be operative in the first half of 2023, the company aims to strengthen the cloud infrastructure in Israel and provide enhanced cloud services to developers, startups, enterprises, and non-profit organizations.

AWS Regions are comprised of Availability Zones, which place infrastructure in discrete geographic locations with sufficient distance to reduce the risk of a single event impacting the continuity of customers’ businesses.

Moreover, AWS was selected by the government of Israel as its primary cloud provider to speed up digital transformation in the country.

“The new AWS Israel (Tel Aviv) Region will empower more public and private institutions, innovative startups, and global companies to deliver built-for-the-cloud applications that help fuel economic development across the country, said Peter DeSantis, SVP, AWS Global Infrastructure.” (See Amazon stock analysis on TipRanks)

DeSantis further added, “The new region is a continuation of our investment to support enterprises of all kinds, help startups scale and grow, enable technical skills development, and create cloud literacy. Cloud technology is at the heart of the Israeli government’s digital transformation program, and their approach highlights the importance of setting a strong course for cloud adoption and leading by example to re-invent citizen services.”

Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating with a price target of $4,360 on Amazon stock. Nowak’s price target implies 30.3% upside potential.

Post commented, “The approximate 40% growth this year follows an approximate 40% sq. ft. growth in 2020 (and this could be understated since there is a lot of activity that is not disclosed), a positive sign for future sales.”

He further added, “Recent developments in Amazon’s logistics build out include: 1) new types of same day fulfillment centers that are co-located with delivery stations that carry over 100k stock keeping units (SKUs), with only 19 of these facilities in US now, but likely to roll out to top 50 US markets; 2) air hub coming Online, purchase of an additional 11 aircraft (now 75 aircraft total), and 153 flights per day globally, including recent launch of flights in Germany; and 3) launching new Sortation Centers in more rural areas, reducing areas where Amazon depends on US Postal Service and UPS.”

Consensus among analysts is a Strong Buy based on 31 unanimous Buys. The AMZN average analyst price target of $4,295.17 implies 28.3% upside potential from the current levels. Shares have gained 30.1% over the past year.

Amazon scores a “Perfect 10” from TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, indicating that the stock has strong potential to outperform market expectations.