SEATTLE – Amazon.com Inc. today reported fourth-quarter revenue of $213.4 billion, exceeding Wall Street forecasts. But investors were disappointed with per-share earnings that missed expectations and raised questions as to whether Amazon’s aggressive build-out of data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure will ultimately be worth it.
CEO Andy Jassy said he remains confident that the capital expenditures will pay off in the long run, and said the company expects to increase spending in 2026.
“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, low-earth orbit satellites, we expect to invest about $200 billion in capital expenditures across Amazon in 2026, and anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital,” Jassy said in a statement.
Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing unit, had revenue of $35.5 billion in the quarter, up from $33 billion in the preceding quarter and exceeding expectations. The 24% increase was AWS' fastest growth in more than three years, Jassy said.
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Sales at Amazon’s e-commerce unit increased 10% to $83 billion. Sales at physical stores rose 5% to $5.8 billion.
"The core retail business maintained solid growth through the all-important holiday quarter, with a notable improvement in North America profitability driven by operational leverage in fulfillment despite the expansion of ever-faster delivery,” Sky Canaves, an Emarketer analyst, said in a statement.
Advertising revenue increased 23% from a year ago to $21.3 billion.
Amazon said revenue from Prime memberships and other subscriptions increased 14% in the quarter to $13.1 billion.
