Amazon’s market value topped $3 trillion for the first time Monday, making it the fifth company ever to cross that threshold. Amazon Web Services sales rose 37% in the second quarter, their fastest growth in 18 quarters. The rally began after Amazon disclosed the AWS figure in its Thursday earnings release.

Second-quarter AWS sales reached $42.2 billion, taking the business to a $169 billion annualized revenue run rate, Amazon said. StreetAccount had expected $40.54 billion. The company reported AWS operating income of $16.6 billion, compared with $10.2 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

What Changed

AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.

On Friday, Amazon shares jumped more than 15%, their biggest one-day gain in more than 14 years, adding nearly $400 billion in market value. The stock closed 4% higher Monday and reached an intraday record of $287.20. Year to date, the shares have gained more than 23%.

The rally reversed part of a three-month selloff. The stock had fallen nearly 18% between its May 6 record and a low reached in July. Bloomberg calculated that the shares traded at roughly 25 times forward earnings, about 44% below their average multiple over the previous decade.

Mark Hackett, Nationwide’s chief market strategist, told Reuters that skepticism before earnings had centered on whether cloud providers were slowing their AI spending. Results from Amazon and Microsoft instead produced “a much broader all-clear for the market,” he said. Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Oracle also rose Monday.

Companywide sales increased 20% to $200.6 billion, above the $196.47 billion analysts had expected. Operating income reached $27.5 billion, a 43% increase, Amazon reported. The company disclosed that second-quarter net income of $62.6 billion included $53.4 billion of non-operating pre-tax income, primarily from its investments in Anthropic. Trailing-twelve-month free cash flow was an outflow of $7.6 billion, compared with an inflow of $18.2 billion a year earlier, Amazon said. It attributed the decline mainly to a sharp rise in property and equipment purchases for artificial intelligence.

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Chief Executive Andy Jassy raised the company’s 2026 capital-spending forecast to $220 billion from the $200 billion projected in February, citing higher memory prices associated with the AI buildout. “But even at that amount, we will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026, and I believe this dynamic will also be true in 2027 too,” he told investors.

AWS’s AI business and its chips operation had each passed a $25 billion annual revenue run rate, Amazon said. It also said Anthropic and OpenAI had made multi-year, multi-gigawatt commitments for Amazon’s Trainium chips. According to AFP, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta were collectively on track to spend around $700 billion on AI data centers, chips and computing infrastructure this year.

For the third quarter, Amazon expects sales of $197 billion to $202 billion and operating income of $22.5 billion to $26.5 billion, up from $17.4 billion in the same quarter last year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which companies have reached a $3 trillion market value?

Amazon is the fifth, joining Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple. Nvidia is currently the largest, with a market capitalization approaching $5 trillion.

How fast did Amazon add its third trillion?

Just over two years. Amazon first reached a $2 trillion market capitalization in June 2024. The previous trillion took more than six years, from late 2018.

How much is Amazon spending on AI infrastructure this year?

Chief Executive Andy Jassy raised the 2026 capital-spending forecast to $220 billion, up from the $200 billion projected in February, citing higher memory prices associated with the AI buildout.

Was Amazon's quarterly profit driven by operations?

Only partly. Operating income reached $27.5 billion, a 43% increase. But of the $62.6 billion in net income, $53.4 billion was non-operating pre-tax income, primarily from Amazon's investments in Anthropic.

Is Amazon generating free cash flow?

Not on a trailing-twelve-month basis. Free cash flow was an outflow of $7.6 billion, compared with an inflow of $18.2 billion a year earlier. Amazon attributed the decline mainly to a sharp rise in property and equipment purchases for artificial intelligence.

AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.

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Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: editor@implicator.ai