Amazon faces earnings scrutiny
- Amazon is set to report first-quarter 2026 results on April 29, with investors focused on whether Amazon Web Services and advertising can justify a sharply higher spending plan. - The pressure point is capital spending: Amazon told investors in February it expects about $200 billion of capex in 2026, far above the roughly $146.6 billion analysts had expected. - Amazon shares closed at $263.99 on April 24, near a 52-week high, leaving little room for weak guidance after February’s spending shock. (cnbc.com)
Amazon reports first-quarter 2026 results on Wednesday, April 29, with Wall Street focused less on retail volume than on whether Amazon’s artificial intelligence spending is turning into revenue. (aboutamazon.com) (ir.aboutamazon.com) The immediate backdrop is Amazon’s February earnings report, when the company said 2026 capital expenditures would reach about $200 billion. CNBC reported that figure was well above the $146.6 billion analysts had expected, and Amazon shares fell after the announcement. (cnbc.com) Chief executive Andy Jassy said most of that spending would go to Amazon Web Services, the cloud unit that rents computing power and storage to other companies. He told investors demand was strong for both traditional cloud workloads and newer artificial intelligence workloads. (cnbc.com 1) (cnbc.com 2) That puts Amazon Web Services at the center of this report. In the fourth quarter, Amazon Web Services revenue rose 24% to $35.58 billion, operating income reached $12.47 billion, and the unit produced most of Amazon’s profit. (cnbc.com) Advertising is the other business investors are watching because it carries higher margins than Amazon’s core online store. Amazon’s ad business generated $21.32 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, ahead of StreetAccount estimates cited by CNBC. (cnbc.com) Amazon is also trying to show that its artificial intelligence push is not just about buying more chips and building more data centers. Yahoo Finance reported this week that Amazon has said its in-house chip business, including Graviton, Trainium and Nitro, has passed a $20 billion annual revenue run rate. (finance.yahoo.com) The same Yahoo Finance report said Amazon has highlighted a long-term Anthropic commitment worth more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services over a decade. It also said Amazon has pointed to an OpenAI commitment that reportedly exceeds $100 billion. (finance.yahoo.com) Competition is tightening at the same time. CNBC reported Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 39% and Alphabet’s Google Cloud revenue rose about 48% in their latest quarters, increasing pressure on Amazon to prove it is keeping pace in artificial intelligence services. (cnbc.com) Investors are heading into the report with the stock already stretched. Yahoo Finance data show Amazon closed at $263.99 on April 24, up 27.38% over one month and sitting just below its 52-week high of $264.50. (finance.yahoo.com) (cnbc.com) That leaves Amazon with a simple test on April 29: show that Amazon Web Services growth, ad revenue and artificial intelligence demand are rising fast enough to carry a $200 billion spending year. (aboutamazon.com) (cnbc.com)
