Our guidance incorporates the order trends that we've seen to date and what we believe today to be appropriate assumptions. Our guidance assumes, among other things, that we don't conclude any additional business acquisitions, restructurings, or legal settlements. It's not possible to accurately predict demand for our goods and services, and therefore, our actual results could differ materially from our guidance. Revenue growth of 36.7% year-over-year, accelerating for the fifth straight quarter, our fastest growth in 18 quarters back when AWS was less than half its current revenue size.

We added over $4.6 billion in revenue quarter-over-quarter, about 80% more than our largest increase ever. AWS is now a $169 billion annualized revenue run rate business, which, for perspective, would place it 24th on the Fortune 500 list if it was a standalone company. Our chips business now has an annual revenue run rate of over $25 billion, growing triple-digit percentages year-over-year. Our AI revenue run rate climbed significantly quarter-over-quarter, and is now also over $25 billion, growing triple-digit percentages year-over-year.

We're seeing strong growth across both AI and non-AI, what we call core, and growth in one is driving growth in the other. Growth in AI drives core because post-training reinforcement learning and agent tool use is mostly done on CPUs versus AI accelerators. Then it takes action: scheduling meetings, drafting and sending email, updating a CRM record, building a dashboard, and more. We also have services like Amazon Connect, our call center service, and AWS Transform, which automates software migration growing quickly.

What went well
  • Total revenue of $200.6 billion grew 20% year-over-year and operating income of $27.5 billion rose 43%, both well ahead of expectations, in what management called another very strong quarter.
  • AWS revenue grew 36.7% year-over-year to $42.2 billion, accelerating for the fifth straight quarter and the fastest growth in 18 quarters, adding over $4.6 billion sequentially -- about 80% more than its largest-ever increase -- and reaching a $169 billion annualized run rate.
  • The AWS backlog (RPO) reached $496 billion, growing triple digits year-over-year and about 2.5x the level a year earlier, giving strong visibility into future demand.
  • AWS operating margin expanded roughly 650 basis points year-over-year (about 520 basis points excluding a derivative-accounting gain), with operating income of $16.6 billion, showing AI growth following a margin trajectory a bit ahead of the pace core once set.
  • The AI business surpassed a $25 billion annualized revenue run rate growing triple digits, and the custom-silicon chips business also exceeded $25 billion run rate, anchored by multi-year, multi-gigawatt Trainium commitments from Anthropic and OpenAI.
  • In commerce, worldwide paid units grew 17%, North America revenue rose 16% to $116.2 billion, and everyday-essentials momentum accelerated -- same-day perishables now reach 2,300 U.S. cities, with monthly active perishable customers up 50% year-to-date.
What went wrong
  • Q3 revenue guidance of $197-$202 billion implies a sequential deceleration, driven largely by Prime Day timing (in Q2 this year versus entirely Q3 in 2025); excluding Prime Day, Q3 year-over-year growth would have been nearly 400 basis points higher.
  • Guidance also assumes an unfavorable foreign-exchange impact of roughly 80 basis points based on current rates.
  • Reported operating income benefited from about $1.2 billion of one-time items (~$600 million of tariff-related refunds and a ~$600 million energy-contract derivative fair-value gain), flattering the year-over-year comparison.
  • The fulfillment network faced heightened transportation costs from fuel inflation tied to the Middle East conflict and higher line-haul rates from driver-capacity limits, only partially offset by an FBA fuel and logistics surcharge.
  • Management flagged inflated component prices for memory, hard drives, and SSDs, a supply-chain cost pressure that contributed to raised CapEx, with cash CapEx of $53.1 billion in Q2 and ~$200 billion planned for 2026.

Guidance Changes

MetricPeriodCurrent guidance
Net salesQ3 2026$197B-$202B (Prime Day timing shift and ~80 bps FX headwind mask underlying strength; ex-Prime Day growth ~400 bps higher)
Operating incomeQ3 2026$22.5B-$26.5B
Cash CapExFY2026~$200B and higher, with clear line of sight to strong financial returns; majority for AI and AWS
AWS power capacityBy end of 2027Reaffirmed on track to double 2025 power capacity by year-end 2027
Robotic-arm fleetFY2026Expect to more than double the fleet of robotic arms (e.g., Cardinal and Sparrow)

Performance Breakdown

MetricYoYNote
Worldwide revenue +20% to $200.6B Broad-based strength across stores and AWS, including a Prime Day timing shift into Q2 for most large countries; 17% worldwide paid-unit growth and double-digit Prime membership growth.
Operating income +43% to $27.5B Strong AWS profitability plus ~$1.2B of one-time benefits (tariff refunds and an energy-derivative fair-value gain); disciplined cost-to-serve management.
AWS revenue +36.7% to $42.2B Fifth straight quarter of acceleration and fastest growth in 18 quarters, driven by both AI and core as enterprises migrate to the cloud and AI pulls along core consumption.
AWS operating income +650 bps margin to $16.6B Disciplined efficiency gains, capacity optimization, custom silicon and network gear, and fixed-cost management (~520 bps ex the derivative gain).
North America segment +16% to $116.2B revenue Operating income of $9.1B at a 7.9% margin; included the ~$600M tariff-refund benefit.
International segment +15% to $42.2B revenue (ex-FX) Operating income of $1.7B at a 4.1% margin on continued cost-to-serve progress.
Cash CapEx $53.1B in the quarter Primarily AWS and generative AI to support strong demand; management sees strong long-term revenue and free-cash-flow potential.

Earnings Call Themes & Trends

TopicPrevious mentionCurrent periodTrend
AI investment ROICHeavy CapEx questioned for returnsAndy Jassy laid out the economics: data-center capital monetizes for 30+ years once servers plug in; servers/networking break even in under three years on 5-6 year lives with most AI capacity contracted for at least five years, giving clear line of sight to strong returns even at ~$200B+ CapEx.
AWS demand and capacityDouble 2025 power capacity by end of 2027Reaffirmed the doubling target; the lion's share of 2027 capacity is already reserved and a meaningful amount of 2028 capacity is reserved, supported by a $496B backlog growing triple digits.
Custom silicon (Trainium and Graviton)Building leading price-performance chipsChips run rate exceeds $25B; Trainium has multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments from Anthropic and OpenAI plus more startups/enterprises; Graviton is used by 98% of the top 1,000 EC2 customers, with commitments up nearly 3x sequentially; Amazon is exploring selling Trainium to third-party data centers.
Agentic AI application layerProviding model building/inference via BedrockExpanding up the stack with Bedrock Agents, Amazon Q (now with autonomous background agents and 16 new integrations), Kiro coding agent (usage tripled QoQ, up to 50% more cost-effective), AWS Transform, Amazon Connect, and the new AWS Continuum security service.
Own frontier modelJassy said AWS can be wildly successful without its own frontier model since no single model will dominate, but Amazon is pursuing one for cost control, prioritization, and speed; within a few years he expects at least a half-dozen comparably good models, all in Bedrock, one of them Amazon's.
Everyday essentials and groceryExperimenting with physical formatsFound a needle-mover in same-day perishables now in 2,300 U.S. cities (nine of top-10 sellers are perishables; +50% monthly active perishable customers YTD); grocery GMS was over $150B last year, making Amazon the second-largest U.S. grocer, with Whole Foods and the new Daily Shop format expanding rapidly.

Q&A Summary

Doug Anmuth (J.P. Morgan) asked about the drivers and sustainability of the ~39% AWS operating margin, and whether Amazon needs its own leading frontier model.
Olsavsky attributed the margin to disciplined efficiency, capacity optimization, and fixed-cost management (up 650 bps YoY, 520 bps ex the derivative gain) while cautioning margins will fluctuate. Jassy said AI is following the same, slightly faster, margin trajectory as core; AWS can succeed without a frontier model since no one model will rule, but Amazon is building its own for cost control, prioritization, and speed -- one of at least a half-dozen comparably good models expected in Bedrock.
Justin Post (Bank of America) asked whether the AWS acceleration was driven by capacity coming online and for color on second-half and 2027 capacity additions.
Jassy cited multiple drivers -- AWS's breadth of functionality, operational performance and security, inference living near existing workloads, enterprise cloud migration (85% of IT spend is still on-premises), and AI pulling along core via CPU-based post-training on Graviton. He reaffirmed being on track to double 2025 power capacity by year-end 2027.
Brian Nowak (Morgan Stanley) asked whether long-lived data-center spend could slow in 2027 and about the timing and ROIC of selling Trainium to third parties.
Jassy said demand is too strong to slow -- most 2027 capacity is reserved and some 2028 capacity too -- describing a barbelled adoption curve (AI labs and runaway apps on one end, enterprise cost-avoidance on the other, and the large middle of production workloads still to convert). On Trainium, he said there is a real chance Amazon will sell chips to third-party data centers in the future given strong demand.
Ken Gawrelski (Wells Fargo) asked what the ~2.5x RPO expansion implies for 2028+ capacity and how AWS pricing incorporates future cost inflation.
Jassy said the growing backlog is factored into CapEx projections and he expects to keep signing deals as the market-segment leader. On pricing, he said signed multi-year deals lock in agreed prices for their duration, while new agreements price in current costs -- acknowledging inflated prices for memory, hard drives, and SSDs.
Eric Sheridan (Goldman Sachs) asked about consumer signals from scaling fast commerce, groceries, and everyday essentials, and any geographic differences.
Jassy said Amazon is enthusiastic about the pace of everyday-essentials and perishables growth, enabled by broader selection and faster delivery; grocery GMS topped $150B last year (second-largest U.S. grocer), Whole Foods is outpacing comparable grocers, and same-day perishables in 2,300 cities are changing the trajectory, with perishable orders averaging three times more units.

More on Amazon Com Inc

Reported 2026-07-30 · figures from the Amazon Com Inc Q2 2026 earnings call.

See how VectorShift works for your firm

Request Demo