Amazon delivered second-quarter results that surpassed Wall Street expectations across revenue, cloud sales, operating income and earnings per share. Net sales reached $200.61 billion, up 20 percent from $167.7 billion a year earlier and ahead of the roughly $196.5 billion to $197 billion consensus. The company recorded net income of $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per diluted share, compared with $18.2 billion, or $1.68 per share, in the prior-year period.

A substantial portion of the profit increase stemmed from $53.4 billion in pre-tax income outside normal operations, primarily tied to the rising value of Amazon’s investment in Anthropic. Analysts had expected earnings near $1.82 per share, making the reported figure less directly comparable because of the non-operating gain. Operating income rose to about $27.5 billion from $19.2 billion, with the operating margin expanding to 13.7 percent.

AWS Delivers Fastest Growth in 18 Quarters

Amazon Web Services generated $42.2 billion in revenue, exceeding estimates of roughly $40.5 billion. Sales climbed 36.7 percent to 37 percent year over year, the division’s strongest growth rate in 18 quarters and well above the approximately 31 percent pace many analysts had projected. AWS contributed $16.6 billion in operating profit, up from $10.2 billion a year earlier.

President and Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy pointed to sustained demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure as the key driver.

Both the AI services and custom silicon businesses grew at triple-digit percentages and surpassed the $25 billion annual revenue run-rate threshold. Amazon said its Trainium chips secured multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments from Anthropic and OpenAI, with additional adoption from companies including Uber and Pinterest. Graviton5 processors became widely available, offering improved price-to-performance relative to prior generations, and the vast majority of top EC2 customers now use Graviton technology.

Amazon Bedrock added more than ten managed foundation models during the period, including offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and xAI. Customer counts and spending on the platform rose sharply, with second-quarter usage exceeding all previous quarters combined. New agent tools and integrations expanded the platform’s capabilities for multi-step workflows and enterprise systems.

Capital Spending Raised Amid Capacity Constraints

Amazon lifted its full-year 2026 capital expenditure outlook to approximately $220 billion from the previous $200 billion forecast. Higher memory prices and persistent demand for computing capacity contributed to the increase. The company spent $54.2 billion on capital projects in the June quarter, up from $32.1 billion a year earlier. Trailing twelve-month free cash flow turned to a $7.6 billion outflow from an $18.2 billion inflow, while operating cash flow rose 33 percent to $161.4 billion.

Jassy noted that even at the higher spending level, capacity would remain insufficient to meet all demand in 2026 and likely into 2027, with notable demand already visible for 2028. Amazon also committed $1 billion to a forward-deployed engineering unit that places AI specialists with customers to accelerate agent deployments.

Advertising, Retail and Other Segments

Advertising revenue reached $19.81 billion, beating estimates of about $19.43 billion and rising 26 percent year over year. North American net sales totaled $116.1 billion. Amazon Business achieved a $60 billion annualized gross sales run rate. Same-day and overnight delivery speeds improved, with grocery and everyday essentials continuing to outpace broader retail growth. Pharmacy customer acquisition more than doubled in the first half, and same-day prescription deliveries increased nearly fivefold.

For the third quarter, Amazon guided revenue to a range of $197 billion to $202 billion, below the $204.1 billion consensus. Management attributed part of the softer outlook to the earlier timing of Prime Day events.

Shares Advance After Results

Amazon shares closed the regular session at $235.50, up nearly 4 percent. In after-hours trading the stock advanced further, rising between roughly 6.5 percent and more than 9 percent, with some reports indicating gains exceeding 10 percent or 11 percent in premarket activity the following day. Investors focused on the acceleration in AWS growth and evidence that large-scale artificial intelligence investments are beginning to support faster revenue expansion and higher operating profit, even as elevated capital spending continues to pressure free cash flow.