Amazon announced its financial report for the second quarter of 2026 ending in June, on Thursday, July 30th, led by strong growth in its cloud computing business, exceeding market expectations in terms of revenue and earnings per share. Among its subsidiaries, Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported a 37% year-on-year revenue growth, marking its fastest growth rate in over four years. The company also raised its full-year capital expenditure forecast, indicating a continued increase in infrastructure investment, which led to a nearly 9% surge in its stock price after hours.
According to Reuters, Amazon’s revenue for the second quarter reached $200.61 billion, surpassing analysts’ average estimate of $197.28 billion, while earnings per share stood at $2.96, also higher than the market’s anticipated $2.45 per share.
The highly anticipated Amazon Web Services recorded a revenue of $42.2 billion in the second quarter, showing a 37% year-on-year growth, surpassing the market’s estimated growth rate of around 31% and achieving its fastest pace of growth since early 2022.
Apart from its cloud computing business, Amazon’s advertising revenue reached $19.8 billion, up by 26% year-on-year. The success of the Prime Day promotional event also boosted the performance of its e-commerce business beyond market expectations.
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, stated that the market demand remains robust, and the company is still facing a situation where demand for computing power exceeds supply. Jassy mentioned, “The current demand still exceeds supply.” The company continues to build data centers, increase servers, and relevant infrastructure in hopes of rapidly boosting computing power to meet the growing needs of its enterprise customers.
Regarding future capacity, he noted, “Most of the additional computing power for 2027 has already been reserved by customers, and part of the capacity for 2028 has also been locked in early.” With more infrastructure in use, he believes that the company will gradually release more computing power over the next few quarters.
Due to the continuous demand growth, Amazon has raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast from approximately $200 billion to $220 billion, primarily directed towards infrastructure building such as data centers, networking equipment, in-house chips, logistics automation, and satellite networks.
As of the second quarter, Amazon’s undisclosed contractual obligations have increased to $496 billion, reflecting a high level of cloud service demand from enterprise customers in the coming years.
Over the past year, the market has been closely monitoring whether the significant investments made by large tech companies can translate into revenue growth. Amazon’s impressive performance in its cloud computing business this time, coupled with the announcement of further capital expenditure increase, demonstrates the company’s confidence in future demand and helps alleviate concerns in the market regarding high investment returns.
Buoyed by the positive financial report, Amazon’s stock price surged by nearly 9% in after-hours trading on the 30th, becoming one of the main stocks driving the post-market strength of major U.S. tech stocks.