New York, March 2, 2026, 05:13 (EST) — Premarket
Amazon.com (AMZN.O) shares drew attention before the bell Monday, with the company’s cloud division reporting ongoing power and connectivity issues at its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. This comes after attacks swept parts of the Gulf over the weekend. AWS said a UAE site was affected when “objects” hit the facility, sparking a fire and igniting concerns that repairs could stretch on for “multiple hours.” Reuters
This outage hits at the heart of AWS—the profit driver Amazon relies on and the business line investors zero in on when risk edges higher. Major clients typically engineer around outages, but a shutdown triggered by security concerns calls into question the whole “cloud is resilient” narrative, especially when situations escalate.
The timing comes as markets grapple with how a broader Middle East conflict might ripple through everything from fuel prices to logistics networks. Such a backdrop often drowns out company headlines—unless the news happens to hit infrastructure, in which case the impact can be amplified.
Amazon shares closed out Friday’s session with a 1% gain at $210, moving in a range from $205.20 to $210.33.
Investors are eyeing whether the AWS disruption remains stuck in one availability zone—a specific data center cluster inside a larger cloud “region”—or if it starts affecting more services. Customer impact shows up quickly, either in AWS status updates or chatter from companies built on Amazon’s cloud.
There’s a clear risk here—a slower unwind, maybe credits issued to customers, workloads migrating, or spending getting tighter as clients reassess regional capacity needs. On the other hand, the whole thing could be over quickly, a headline that fizzles out by the open, with the stock just moving in line with the rest of the market.
Vodafone, in a separate announcement, said it’s teaming up with Amazon’s low Earth orbit network, Amazon Leo, to link 4G and 5G mobile masts scattered across remote regions in Europe and Africa. The rollout kicks off in Germany and other European markets later this year, with plans to reach Africa through Vodacom after that.
Amazon is shaking up its India retail strategy, announcing it will scrap referral fees—those commissions per sale—for items under 1,000 rupees ($10.98). The new policy kicks in March 16 and applies to over 125 million products. Alongside, the company has cut select shipping charges. “This move is designed to make selling on Amazon more lucrative and simpler,” said Amit Nanda, director of Selling Partner Services for Amazon India. Reuters
Amazon’s India drive intensifies the competition with Walmart-backed Flipkart and Reliance’s retail unit, even as “quick-commerce” players touting ultra-fast deliveries keep grabbing ground. Lowering fees may lure in more sellers, though this squeezes take rates—a tradeoff that won’t go unnoticed by investors in a market where growth isn’t everything.
Macro forces aren’t taking a back seat—oil and LNG shipments are facing turbulence as the Iran conflict drags on, sending crude prices surging and tilting investors toward defensive plays this week.
Come Monday, traders are focused on how quickly AWS can get back on track and whether Gulf disruptions grow. They’ll also be watching closely for any hints the problem is starting to reach customer operations. The next clear event from Amazon itself lands on March 16, when the company plans to roll out its new India fee structure.
