Amazon Q1 2026 earnings beat as AWS growth hits 15-quarter high

2 min readUpdated April 29, 2026

Amazon $AMZN reported first-quarter earnings Wednesday that topped analyst expectations, with its cloud division posting its fastest growth rate in 15 quarters.

The company delivered diluted earnings per share of $2.78 and total revenue of $181.5 billion against analyst forecasts of $1.64 in EPS and $177.3 billion in revenue. Total revenue rose 17% from the prior year.

Capital expenditures reached $44.2 billion in the quarter, up from $25 billion in Q1 2025, driven by investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Free cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis fell to $1.2 billion from $25.9 billion in the prior period, reflecting a year-over-year increase of $59.3 billion in property and equipment purchases.

Shares slid more than 3% in after-hours trading after the report was released.

AWS revenue of $37.6 billion cleared the $36.64 billion consensus estimate, representing a 28% year-over-year gain. The division generated operating income of $14.2 billion at a 37.7% operating margin.

Net income for the quarter reached $30.3 billion, compared with $17.1 billion in Q1 2025. The company said Q1 net income included pre-tax gains of $16.8 billion from investments in Anthropic.

North America segment net sales reached $104.1 billion, up 12%, with operating income of $8.3 billion. International net sales were $39.8 billion, up 19%, or 11% excluding foreign exchange effects.

Amazon $AMZN's chips business — comprising its Graviton, Trainium, and Nitro product lines — exceeded a $20 billion annual revenue run rate, growing at triple-digit percentages year-over-year, the company said. Amazon also said more tokens were processed through its Bedrock platform in Q1 2026 than in all prior years combined, with customer spend growing 170% quarter-over-quarter.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy pointed to broad growth across the business.

"AWS is growing 28% (our fastest growth in 15 quarters) on a very large base, our chips business topped a $20 billion revenue run rate (growing triple digits year-over-year), advertising grew to over $70 billion in TTM revenue, and unit growth in our stores reached 15% (the highest since the tail end of covid lockdowns)," Jassy said in a statement.

For the second quarter, Amazon projected net sales of $194 billion to $199 billion, representing growth of 16% to 19% compared with Q2 2025. Operating income is expected to come in between $20 billion and $24 billion. The guidance assumes Prime Day occurs in Q2 2026.

Amazon posted a massive earnings beat as AWS cloud growth hit its fastest pace in years

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