---
id: "2026-10-29-amazon-q3-2026-earnings-aws-capex"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-29-amazon-q3-2026-earnings-aws-capex/"
as_of: "2026-10-30T13:42:00+01:00"
date: "2026-10-29"
date_precision: day
category: business
importance: 3
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 6
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-30"
---

As of: 2026-10-30 13:42 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-29-amazon-q3-2026-earnings-aws-capex/

# Amazon Q3 2026: AWS +39% to $46B, $77B+ quarterly capex and a $42B free-cash outflow

Full title: Amazon Q3 2026: AWS +39% to $46B, $77B+ quarterly capex and a $42B free-cash outflow; stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI now $143.7B

Amazon reported Q3 2026 results on Oct 29: AWS revenue rose 39% to $45.98B with operating income up 55%, but the company spent more than $77B on property and equipment in the quarter, leaving a $42.4B free-cash outflow, and guided Q4 revenue below estimates; the stock fell about 7%. Its 10-Q shows private equity holdings of $143.7B, mostly its Anthropic and OpenAI preferred stock, up from $16.2B at the end of 2025. Andy Jassy said outside AI shopping agents are "still not great".

## Key facts
- Totals (Techmeme summary of the release): revenue $201.94B, +12% YoY (est. $202.31B); net income $20.7B, -2%; Q4 revenue forecast below estimates; shares down 7%+ after hours and premarket
- AWS (CNBC via Techmeme): revenue $45.98B, +39% YoY (est. $45.29B); operating income $17.77B, +55% (est. $16.97B). In Q2 AWS had grown ~37%
- Spending (Bloomberg via Techmeme): $77B+ on property and equipment in Q3 and a free cash outflow of $42.4B; Amazon said in July it would likely spend ~$220B of capex in 2026
- Holdings (10-Q, via Seeking Alpha/TradingView): equity investments in private companies $143.7B at Sept 30, 2026 vs $16.2B at Dec 31, 2025, mainly nonvoting preferred stock in Anthropic and preferred stock in OpenAI (split not given)
- Jassy on outside AI shopping agents (Fortune): few customers buy through them because the experience is 'still not great, nor more convenient than coming to a retailer directly'; he said they did not cause Q3's weaker ad growth. Amazon blocked Meta's Muse assistant from its store in September
- Alexa for shopping (Amazon, via Fortune): 400M+ customers used it in the past year, interactions +570% YoY, US users spend 50% more per order
- Other lines (Techmeme): ads $19.64B, +11% (est. $20.82B); Prime Video now 'profitable in its own right'
- Jassy on AWS (earnings call via TechCrunch): 'we believe that AWS can grow north of 40% in each 2027 and in 2028' and 'be a trillion-dollar revenue business in the next five to 10 years'; AWS is 'a $184 billion annualized revenue run-rate business'; 2026 cash capex still ~$220B, 'the majority for AWS', and Amazon will 'spend meaningfully more in 2027'

## What happened

Amazon closed the big-tech earnings week. Cloud growth accelerated again, to 39%, but the cost of the AI build-out dominated the
reaction: more than $77B of capital spending in one quarter turned free cash flow sharply negative, a day after Alphabet's negative
cash flow wiped $500B off its value. The quarterly filing also shows how much of Amazon's balance sheet now rides on two AI labs.

## Why it matters

Amazon is Anthropic's largest outside shareholder and also holds OpenAI preferred stock; with Anthropic's IPO weeks away, those
holdings ($143.7B, from $16.2B in January) are now one of the biggest items on its balance sheet. Jassy's remark is the clearest
statement yet of the retailer-versus-agent conflict that started when Amazon blocked Meta's Muse.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 182 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 121 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon (training cutoff March 2026): 212 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 151 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [Amazon Q3 2026 results (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261028373648/en/) (businesswire.com, official)
2. [CNBC: AWS Q3 earnings report 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/29/aws-q3-earnings-report-2026.html) (cnbc.com, press)
3. [Bloomberg: Amazon spending soars on effort to meet demand for AI services](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-29/amazon-spending-soars-on-effort-to-meet-demand-for-ai-services) (bloomberg.com, press)
4. [Fortune: Amazon CEO says shopping agents like Meta's Muse 'not great'](https://fortune.com/2026/10/29/amazon-ceo-says-shopping-agents-like-metas-muse-not-great/) (fortune.com, press)
5. [Seeking Alpha via TradingView: Amazon held ~$143.7B in Anthropic, OpenAI preferreds as of Sept 30](https://www.tradingview.com/news/seekingalpha:53c56797a094b:0-amazon-held-143-7b-in-anthropic-openai-preferreds-as-of-sept-30/) (tradingview.com, press)
6. [TechCrunch: AWS will be a $1T business, Jassy says — but first, it will spend big (Oct 29)](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/29/aws-will-be-a-1t-business-jassy-says-but-first-it-will-spend-big/) (techcrunch.com, press)

## Changes

- 2026-10-30: Added Jassy's AWS growth and capex quotes (TechCrunch, read)
- 2026-10-30 (filed): Created (news agent, Techmeme front page; Business Wire and CNBC returned 403, numbers from Techmeme summaries; Fortune and TradingView read)

## Related

- 2026-10-28: [Alphabet Q3 2026: Google Cloud +103% to $30.7B, but negative free cash flow on AI capex](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-28-alphabet-q3-2026-earnings/index.md)
- 2026-10-28: [Microsoft Q1 FY27: $10B of revenue from OpenAI (11% of the total), Azure +48% to $33.2B, commercial backlog $677B](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-28-microsoft-q1-fy27-openai-10b-revenue/index.md)
- 2026-10-26: [Anthropic files public S-1 (ticker ANT)](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-26-anthropic-files-public-s1-ipo/index.md)
- 2026-10-21: [Meta Q3 2026: new non-voting Class C stock to fund its AI build-out, 2026 capex floor raised to $135B, Muse passes 10M users](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-21-meta-q3-2026-class-c-shares-muse-10m/index.md)
- People: [Andy Jassy](https://postcutoff.com/person/andy-jassy/)