Amazon Q3 Net Sales Rise 12% to $201.9 Billion as AWS Grows 39%

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN ) on October 29, 2026 announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2026, reporting net sales of $201.9 billion, up 12% from $180.2 billion in the third quarter of 2025. Excluding a $0.9 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, net sales increased 13%. The company said Prime Day timing shifted this year, with the event occurring in the second quarter for most large countries after taking place entirely in the third quarter of 2025, and that third-quarter year-over-year growth would have been approximately 400 basis points higher excluding that shift.

Operating income rose to $28.1 billion from $17.4 billion a year earlier, a 61% increase shown in the release’s supplemental tables, and operating margin reached 13.9% of worldwide net sales, which Amazon described as its highest ever. Net income decreased to $20.7 billion, or $1.89 per diluted share, from $21.2 billion, or $1.95 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2025. The company attributed the decrease primarily to $9.5 billion of pre-tax gains recorded in the prior-year quarter within non-operating income from its investments in Anthropic.

Segment Results

North America segment sales increased 6% year-over-year to $112.9 billion, with operating income of $8.7 billion versus $4.8 billion in the prior-year quarter and a segment operating margin of 7.7%. International segment sales rose 5% to $43.1 billion, or 8% excluding foreign exchange changes, with operating income of $1.6 billion versus $1.2 billion and a 3.7% segment margin.

AWS segment sales increased 39% year-over-year to $46.0 billion. Amazon said AWS net sales grew 39.3%, its fastest growth in nearly five years, to a $184 billion annualized revenue run rate. AWS operating income was $17.8 billion versus $11.4 billion a year earlier, a 55% increase per the supplemental tables, at a 38.7% segment operating margin.

By revenue group, online stores sales rose 2% to $68,470 million, physical stores rose 2% to $5,710 million, third-party seller services rose 9% to $46,492 million, advertising services rose 11% to $19,637 million, and subscription services rose 11% to $14,006 million. Amazon said advertising revenue grew 12% excluding foreign exchange in the third quarter, a comparison it said was affected by timing anomalies primarily related to Prime Day. Worldwide shipping costs rose 11% to $28,295 million, and worldwide paid units grew 12% year-over-year.

Operating cash flow increased 29% to $168.3 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $130.7 billion for the twelve months ended September 30, 2025. Free cash flow decreased to an outflow of $42.4 billion for the trailing twelve months, from an inflow of $14.8 billion a year earlier, driven primarily by a year-over-year increase of $94.8 billion in purchases of property and equipment, net of proceeds from sales and incentives. Amazon said this increase primarily reflects investments in artificial intelligence. The supplemental tables show net purchases of property and equipment of $210,657 million for the trailing twelve months, up 82%, while the cash flow statement shows gross purchases of property and equipment of $77,259 million in the third quarter. Long-term debt stood at $173,125 million at September 30, 2026, compared with $65,648 million at December 31, 2025, with proceeds from long-term debt of $48,102 million during the quarter.

“Our AWS investment in functionality and infrastructure is working, with over 39% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3 ($184 billion revenue run rate) and projected revenue growth rates of over 40% both in 2027 and in 2028,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon’s president and CEO. “There has never been a trillion dollar revenue business, and we may have two of them in the next 5-10 years.” Jassy said broader selection and speedier delivery are helping the company capture more retail market segment share with improving margins, and that newer businesses ranging from Grocery to Pharmacy to Amazon Leo to Zoox are progressing encouragingly.

The release said Amazon signed new AWS agreements with Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Salesforce, Oracle, Qualcomm, Verizon, ADP, Stripe, and others. It said Fortune 500 companies spent nearly 7x more year-over-year on Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s inference service, with total Bedrock token volume growing nearly 17x, and that Lambda, its serverless computing offering, recently topped a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate. Amazon also said it acquired DuckLabs, the company behind the open source data analysis tool DuckDB.

In its consumer businesses, Amazon said more than 1.5 billion items arrived same-day or overnight during the quarter, its fastest third-quarter speeds ever for Prime members, and that its ultra-fast delivery service Amazon Now is available in more than 450 towns and cities, with the number of items ordered through the service up 10x year-over-year. Amazon Pharmacy customers increased more than 60% year-over-year, with three-hour prescription delivery available in more than 350 cities. Zoox began offering paid robotaxi rides in Las Vegas, started testing in San Diego and Houston, and now operates in 12 U.S. cities. Amazon said its Leo low Earth orbit satellite service remains on track to begin initial service later this year and that it signed a strategic agreement with AT&T (T ), which will be the first major U.S. telecom provider to offer Leo connectivity to enterprise and public-sector customers. The company also announced Built Together, a $1 billion community investment in U.S. data center communities.

Amazon employed 1,638,000 full-time and part-time workers at quarter end, up 4% year-over-year, excluding contractors and temporary personnel. The company announced plans to hire more than 300,000 seasonal, part-time, and full-time employees across its U.S. operations this holiday season, and an investment of more than $1.5 billion to raise minimum starting pay for U.S. full-time operations employees to $20 an hour.

Fourth Quarter 2026 Guidance

Amazon said it expects fourth-quarter net sales between $240.0 billion and $247.0 billion, representing growth of 12% to 16% compared with the fourth quarter of 2025, a forecast that anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 60 basis points from foreign exchange rates. The company expects operating income between $28.5 billion and $33.5 billion, compared with $25.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, and said it expects year-over-year advertising revenue growth in the high teens for the fourth quarter. Amazon also said it continues to expect 2026 cash capital expenditures of approximately $220 billion.

A conference call is scheduled for webcast at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time on October 29, 2026, with a replay available for at least three months on Amazon’s investor relations site.