The numbers
$213.4 billion: Net sales in the fourth quarter, increasing 12% year-over-year excluding changes in foreign exchange rates.
$21.3 billion: How much Amazon made from advertising in the fourth quarter, representing 22% year-over-year growth. Amazon made $68 billion from advertising in 2025.
$35.5 billion: How much Amazon made in the third quarter from its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, up 24% year-over-year. AWS has a $142 billion annual run rate, up from $132 billion in the third quarter.
$200 billion: Capital expenditure spending in 2026, up from analysts’ expectations of $146 billion.
The watercooler talk
Despite concerns about holiday spending, Amazon reported record sales during the fourth quarter, indicating that the retailer did not suffer significantly from tariffs, inflation, or dips in consumer spending.
During an earnings call with investors, CEO Andy Jassy played up AWS’ growth, noting that it marks the segment’s fastest expansion in 13 quarters.
In terms of advertising, Prime Video remains a big driver of revenue from streaming advertisers. Amazon’s broadcast of Thursday Night Football games this season averaged more than 15 million viewers, a 16% year-over-year growth.
Agentic commerce is also a big focus for Amazon. Rufus, Amazon’s internal AI assistant that helps people find products, is used by 300 million shoppers and drove $12 billion in 2025 sales.
The key quote
Despite all the growth, Amazon plans to heavily spend on capital expenditure costs this year like data centers and other AI infrastructure. Much of the investment is planned to go into AWS, Jassy said.
The higher-than-expected spending sent Amazon’s stock down more than 10% after the company posted earnings, reflecting investors’ concerns. Investors are increasingly scrutinizing AI spending from tech giants because the investments are long-term bets that haven’t been proved.
At the same time, Amazon is continuing rounds of layoffs that have taken place under Jassy’s leadership in recent years. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs in January.
Jassy defended Amazon’s aggressive spending, citing a large demand for its technology.
