Amazon shares jumped more than 13% in extended trading Thursday after the company posted third-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations, along with strong growth in its cloud-computing unit.
Here's how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $1.95 vs. $1.57 estimated
$1.95 vs. $1.57 estimated Revenue: $180.17 billion vs. $177.8 billion estimated
Wall Street was also looking at other key revenue numbers:
Amazon Web Services: $33 billion vs. $32.42 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
$33 billion vs. $32.42 billion expected, according to StreetAccount Advertising: $17.7 billion vs. $17.34 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Revenue in Amazon's cloud unit accelerated 20.2% during the quarter, surpassing analysts' expectations of 18.1%. Cloud growth has been a key area of concern for the company, as it faces intensifying pressure from rivals Google and Microsoft , which also reported quarterly results this week.
Google's cloud revenue increased 34% during the third quarter, while Microsoft Azure recorded growth of 40%.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement that AWS is "growing at a pace we haven't seen since 2022" and touted robust artificial intelligence demand.
"We continue to see strong demand in AI and core infrastructure, and we've been focused on accelerating capacity — adding more than 3.8 gigawatts in the past 12 months," Jassy said.
While Amazon remains the leading provider of cloud infrastructure technology, it's been battling the perception that it's missing out on a flurry of highly lucrative AI deals for cloud services. That concern has weighed on Amazon's stock, which is up roughly 1.6% year to date, trailing its Magnificent Seven peers.
The company on Wednesday opened its $11 billion AI data center called Project Rainier, built exclusively to run models from Claude chatbot creator Anthropic.
Amazon raised its forecast for capital expenditures this year, saying it now expects to spend $125 billion in 2025, up from its earlier estimate of $118 billion. CFO Brian Olsavsky said that number will likely increase in 2026.