Amazon.com NASDAQ:AMZN, an e-commerce and cloud-computing company, jumped approximately 5.2% in Thursday's regular-session trading as investors positioned for its second-quarter results after the closing bell. Amazon previously forecast quarterly revenue between $194 billion and $199 billion. The report follows stronger cloud results from Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT, a software and cloud-computing company, increasing attention on whether Amazon Web Services can produce comparable growth while supporting Amazon's substantial infrastructure program.
AWS revenue increased 28% to $37.6 billion during the first quarter, exceeding analysts' growth expectations of approximately 25%. Amazon generated total quarterly net sales of $181.5 billion and forecast second-quarter revenue above the prevailing consensus. The company spent $44.2 billion on capital expenditure during the first quarter, an increase of more than 76% from the previous year, as management expanded data centers and computing capacity for artificial-intelligence workloads.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy has maintained Amazon's approximately $200 billion capital-spending target for 2026 and argued that investment is necessary to meet anticipated AI demand. AWS services connected with artificial intelligence were already generating more than $15 billion in annualized revenue following the first quarter. However, investors may distinguish between rapid cloud growth and the cash required to build the infrastructure supporting that expansion. AWS revenue, operating margins and any adjustment to the $200 billion spending plan could determine whether Thursday's regular-session advance continues after Amazon releases its results.