Revenue Guidance Eyes 2020億美元
E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon will announce its 2026年第三季 earnings after the US market close on 29日. The company previously guided 第三季 net sales of 1970億 to 2020億美元, up 9% to 12% year-on-year, with operating income of 225億 to 265億美元, above 174億美元 in the same period last year. The market currently expects revenue of about 2021.1億美元, slightly above the high end of the company guidance, with consensus EPS of about 2.01美元.
EPS Distorted by Investment Gains, Focus on Operating Income for Core Business
James Mitchell, analyst at crypto exchange MEXC, noted that Amazon's EPS may be affected by investment gains, so EPS alone may not accurately reflect core operating performance, making operating income and AWS growth momentum more worth watching. Especially as AI infrastructure spending continues to increase, the market will also examine whether revenue growth can translate into actual profit, and the impact of AI data center capital expenditure on free cash flow.
Whether AWS Growth Can Sustain Its Acceleration Trend
AWS 第二季 revenue reached 422.3億美元, up 37% year-on-year, accelerating for five consecutive quarters. The market expects 第三季 year-on-year growth of about 30% to 35%, and failure to sustain last quarter's acceleration trend could pressure the share price. Looking back, when AWS growth accelerated to 20.2% in 2025年第三季 and to 36.8% in 2026年第二季, Amazon shares rose 9.58% and 15.32% respectively the day after earnings. Conversely, if AWS growth slows, the market may reassess the growth potential of the cloud business.
Fourth-Quarter Outlook and Cloud Peers' Results in Focus
Mitchell noted that Amazon's share price performance after recent earnings shows that beating expectations in a single quarter does not guarantee a share price gain, with the AWS growth rate and next-quarter guidance often more influential. The 第四季 operating income outlook is equally important; if the midpoint of the guidance is at least 7% below analyst expectations, similar recent cases have mostly been followed by share price declines or flat performance. Amazon reported 第二季 earnings on 7月30日, with revenue of 2006.1億美元, above the market expectation of 1964.7億美元, driving shares up 15.32% the next day to close at 271.58美元, the largest post-earnings single-day gain in at least 3 years, with quarterly EPS of 5.75美元, mainly boosted by pre-tax gains from its Anthropic investment. Microsoft and Alphabet already reported results after the US market close on 28日, and growth at Azure and Google Cloud will also shape market expectations for AWS.