Seattle, April 30, 2026, 04:01 (PDT)
- Amazon Web Services just delivered its quickest sales growth in 15 quarters, helping to calm investor nerves around the company’s aggressive AI spending spree.
- Amazon projected second-quarter revenue ahead of Wall Street targets, factoring in an expected Prime Day during the period.
- Cash outflows remain a concern—AI spending continues to hit free cash flow, even as Google Cloud posts stronger growth.
Amazon.com stock climbed in early trading Thursday, following a better-than-anticipated performance from Amazon Web Services. The company’s cloud unit delivered solid growth, hinting that demand from businesses for AI infrastructure is beginning to make a meaningful impact on sales. Shares recently changed hands at $263.04, up roughly 1.4% from the previous close.
That’s become crucial with Amazon under pressure to show its massive outlays on data centers, custom chips, and AI products can deliver a payoff that justifies the spending. CEO Andy Jassy has stuck with the company’s $200 billion capital spending plan for 2026, according to Reuters, as investors across Big Tech ramp up demands for clear AI gains.
Amazon posted a 17% jump in first-quarter net sales, hitting $181.5 billion. Revenue from AWS surged 28% to $37.6 billion. Operating income reached $23.9 billion, up from $18.4 billion last year. Net income landed at $30.3 billion, boosted by $16.8 billion in pre-tax gains related to Amazon’s Anthropic investment.
“AWS is growing 28%,” Jassy said in Amazon’s earnings statement, highlighting it as the cloud group’s quickest growth in 15 quarters. He mentioned as well that Amazon’s chips segment hit an annual revenue run rate north of $20 billion—a rough estimate that simply projects the unit’s current quarterly sales pace across an entire year. Amazon
Amazon is forecasting revenue between $194 billion and $199 billion for the current quarter, translating to growth of 16% to 19%. Operating income guidance landed between $20 billion and $24 billion. The company noted this outlook factors in Prime Day taking place during the second quarter.
Cloud performance grabbed analyst attention. “The significant reacceleration in AWS sales growth is the standout story,” Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com, told Reuters. According to Cohen, Amazon customers are bringing in new AI workloads. Reuters
The picture for competitors was muddier. Google Cloud, part of Alphabet, posted a 63% jump to $20 billion for the quarter, Reuters said. That’s a sharper rise than AWS managed, though Google’s cloud business is still smaller. “Much better growth rate” for Google Cloud, said D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria to Reuters, might be “a slight disappointment” for AWS. Reuters
Amazon is shoring up its AI business. On April 28, OpenAI announced plans to bring its Codex coding agent and managed agents to AWS. Amazon responded, confirming those tools would be available via Bedrock, its AI model management platform.
The company is putting more weight behind Anthropic, the creator of Claude AI models. According to Reuters, Amazon has agreed to invest as much as $25 billion in Anthropic, which in turn is set to pour more than $100 billion over a decade into Amazon’s cloud services.
Retail pitched in, and advertising gave a strong boost. North America sales jumped 12% to $104.1 billion, while international sales climbed 19%, ending up at $39.8 billion. Advertising services pulled in $17.24 billion—an increase of 24%. Amazon counts sales of sponsored ads, video and display ads, plus similar programs for sellers, vendors, publishers, and others as advertising services.
Still, that’s a hefty bill. Amazon’s free cash flow landed at $1.2 billion for the trailing 12 months, a steep drop from $25.9 billion a year ago, according to the company. First-quarter capital expenditures hit $44.2 billion, topping what analysts had expected, Reuters noted.
The next hurdle: Can AWS maintain this momentum as Amazon invests in capacity before it’s needed? Rapid cloud gains give Jassy breathing room, but investors aren’t letting go of one question—once these AI factories are up and running, just how much cash will they generate?
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