In the fourth quarter of 2024, the most popular vendor in the cloud infrastructure services market, Amazon Web Services (AWS), controlled 33 percent of the entire market. Microsoft Azure takes second place with 20 percent market share, followed by Google Cloud with 10 percent market share. Together, these three cloud vendors account for 63 percent of total spend in the fourth quarter of 2024. Organizations use cloud services from these vendors for machine learning, data analytics, cloud native development, application migration, and other services. AWS Services Amazon Web Services is used by many organizations because it offers a wide variety of services and products to its customers that improve business agility while being secure and reliable. One of AWS’s most used services is Amazon EC2, which lets customers create virtual machines for their strategic projects while spending less time on maintaining servers. Another important service is Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), which offers a secure file storage service. In addition, Amazon also offers security, website infrastructure management, and identity and access management solutions. Cloud infrastructure services Vendors offering cloud services to a global customer base do so through different types of cloud computing, which include infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). Further, there are different cloud computing deployment models available for customers, namely private cloud and public cloud, as well as community cloud and hybrid cloud. A cloud deployment model is defined based on the location where the deployment resides, and who has access to and control over the infrastructure.

This data package contains raw leaf gas exchange data used to support the publication "Leaf isoprene and monoterpene emission distribution across hyperdominant tree genera in the Amazon basin," Phytochemistry, in-press. Data was collected from 162 individuals, distributed among 25 botanical families and 113 species, from four sites in the Amazon. The data was collected using a modified portable photosynthesis system (Li6400XT, Li-Cor Biosciences, USA) for leaf environmental control coupled to a thermal desorption tube for volatile isoprenoid collections. The dataset includes leaf physiological parameters including net photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, and transpiration under standard environmental conditions as well as controlled light response curves. Within the attached zip file, data is presented in Excel files organized by site and then species, if available. Files are labelled with the naming system: SITE_TREEID/NAME_DATE.xlsx. A clear explanation of the data table organization, which is uniform throughout all files, is contained in the file “NGT00124_DataColumnDescriptionMetadata_v1-1_01032020.xlsx.” This file is a part of a file level metadata standardization tool, FRAMES, used by the NGEE Tropics project. For detailed methods and accompanying data packages, refer to the related material cited under Related References.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Amazon Prime Video was the most popular subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in the United States with a market share of 22 percent, based on the users' interest in adding content to their watch lists of certain streaming platforms. Netflix followed closely with a market share of 21 percent. Subscription streaming market – a money-losing business? While subscription streaming platforms increased their subscriber bases in the years 2020 and 2021 due to the measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 and 2023 saw services such as Netflix and Disney+ lose a substantial number of customers. Furthermore, the direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses of large media companies are struggling to turn a profit. Paramount, for example, reported a loss of 1.7 billion U.S. dollars for its streaming services in 2023. Streaming companies take action In order to compensate for subscriber and income losses, streaming companies implemented several strategies, such as launching more profitable ad-supported tiers, cracking down on credential sharing, laying off thousands of employees, and spending less on content. The Walt Disney Company was already able to increase DTC profits recently. Its cost-cutting measures include layoffs and savings in content spending by reducing content produced and removing TV shows and movies from its streaming services.

Android maintained its position as the leading mobile operating system worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2024 with a market share of about 72.04 percent. Android's closest rival, Apple's iOS, had a market share of approximately 27.49 percent during the same period. The leading mobile operating systems Both unveiled in 2007, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS have evolved through incremental updates introducing new features and capabilities. The latest version of iOS, iOS 18, was released in September 2024, while the most recent Android iteration, Android 15, was made available in September 2023. A key difference between the two systems concerns hardware - iOS is only available on Apple devices, whereas Android ships with devices from a range of manufacturers such as Samsung, Google and OnePlus. In addition, Apple has had far greater success in bringing its users up to date. As of February 2024, 66 percent of iOS users had iOS 17 installed, while in the same month only 13 percent of Android users ran the latest version. The rise of the smartphone From around 2010, the touchscreen smartphone revolution had a major impact on sales of basic feature phones, as the sales of smartphones increased from 139 million units in 2008 to 1.39 billion units in 2023. In 2020, smartphone sales decreased to 1.38 billion units due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Apple, Samsung, and lately also Xiaomi, were the big winners in this shift towards smartphones, with BlackBerry and Nokia among those unable to capitalize.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score of the e-commerce website of Amazon.com has fluctuated since 2000. In 2024, the customer satisfaction score of the online retailer was 83 out of 100 ASCI points. Popularity contest Amazon is one of the most popular marketplaces worldwide. In April 2023, the U.S. domain for Amazon ranked the most visited e-commerce and shopping website by share of online visits, with around 13 percent. Ebay came in second with roughly three percent of the visit share, and the Japanese site amazon.co.jp came in third with 2.66 percent. In the same month, global online shoppers visited amazon.com around 2.2 billion times. Why Amazon? Amazon.com is the most used e-commerce website in the world, and in the U.S., the website is far ahead of its competitors. With a significant difference in website visitors of almost 45 percent, ebay.com is second to amazon.com. Furthermore, the retail giant Walmart trails behind with an online visit share of roughly six percent. Amazon is used for various reasons by its customers. For example, the online marketplace is ranked as the leading platform for product research in the U.S., surpassing even search engines in popularity. Low shipping costs, fast deliveries, and affordable product prices are the main reasons for shopping on Amazon.

Amazon enjoyed staggering sales growth in United Kingdom over the past decade, taking net sales from roughly four billion to almost 33.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. That makes the UK the retail behemoth’s second biggest European market, sitting behind Germany where the company reported total net sales of about 37.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

Amazon’s other UK presence Amazon runs 20 distribution services in the UK, where Amazon has its largest European logistics and fulfillment presence. Operating under the “Amazon UK Services” name, the retailer generated over two billion British pounds in 2018. This represented over 200 percent turnover growth since 2015.

Consumers have no problem shopping with Amazon

In proportion to the pace Amazon’s retail empire is expanding, worries are voiced within the industry about the monopoly held by the retailer, not to mention the privacy concerns revolving around Amazon’s own brand smart devices. Yet shoppers seem unfazed, as convenience and variety offered by the retailer convert more and more people into being Amazon shoppers. A recent survey conducted with UK shoppers found out that only a small share of consumers felt guilty about or actively chose not shopping with Amazon. In comparison, nearly one quarter of those surveyed said they “loved” shopping with Amazon.