Amazon’s stock pops on roaring cloud growth and soaring AI demand
Amazon.com Inc. delivered a solid earnings and revenue beat as it posted its second-quarter financial results, driven by surging growth in its cloud infrastructure business. Demand for artificial intelligence was the primary factor in that growth, causing the company to boost its capital expenditure forecast once again.
The company reported a stunning earnings beat. It posted a profit of $5.75 per share, crushing Wall Street’s forecast of just $1.82 per share, thanks mainly to a $53 billion boost in non-operational income that stemmed from an unrealized gain on its stake in the AI lab Anthropic PBC. Revenue for the period came to $200.61 billion, up 20% from a year earlier and well ahead of the $196.47 billion forecast.
All told, Amazon delivered net income of $62.6 billion, including the pre-tax income derived from its investment in Anthropic. That’s up from a net profit of just $18.2 billion one year ago.
Amazon’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, contributed $42.2 billion in revenue, above the Street’s $40.54 billion forecast and up 37% from the same period one year ago. That marked the unit’s fastest growth since 2021, said Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy.
