Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, arrives at The Sun Valley Resort for the Allen and Company Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 8, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Amazon is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.
Here’s what analysts polled by LSEG are expecting:
- Earnings per share: $1.97 per share
- Revenue: $211.33 billion
Wall Street is also looking at other key revenue numbers:
- Amazon Web Services: $34.93 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
- Advertising: $21.16 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Cloud revenue growth will once again be a major focus for investors after the unit expanded 20.2% last quarter, up from 18% in the second period. Analysts are looking for 21.4% growth in the fourth quarter.
Investors are also listening for any updates to Amazon’s spending plans around artificial intelligence. In the third quarter, the company said capital expenditures were on pace to hit $125 billion in 2025 and that the number will likely increase this year.
As it rapidly invests in AI, Amazon has been aggressively slashing costs elsewhere inside the company. Amazon said last week it would lay off about 16,000 employees across its corporate workforce, after cutting roughly 14,000 staffers last October.
CEO Andy Jassy has said the layoffs are also part of a broader effort to reduce bureaucracy and speed up innovation, so it can operate like the “world’s largest startup.”
The job reductions coincided with a week of controversy for Amazon, where it faced scrutiny over its $75 million investment in a documentary about the first lady and its response to the recent fatal shootings by federal agents in Minnesota.
AI and data centers
Amazon has been racing to build data centers and other infrastructure to meet a surge in AI demand. Last October, the company opened an $11 billion AI data center called Project Rainier, built exclusively to run workloads from Claude creator Anthropic.
Amazon is simultaneously strengthening its ties to Anthropic rival OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker agreed last November to buy $38 billion worth of cloud computing services from Amazon over the next seven years.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Jassy are also in ongoing talks about the possibility for Amazon to invest up to $50 billion in the startup. CNBC reported Wednesday that the companies are weighing further collaboration, including using OpenAI’s models to power Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, as well as other internal projects.
Investors have been pressing Amazon for more clarity around its AI strategy.
The company continues to fight the perception that it’s an “AI laggard,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a Tuesday research note.
“Amazon remains positioned as one of the worst performers among the Mag 7 given fears around the company being an AI laggard,” the analysts wrote. “While we don’t expect 4Q earnings to be the magic bullet that changes these fortunes, we do expect another positive earnings outcome to continue to chip away at this underperformance and believe Amazon can be one of the largest outperformers in our coverage in 2026.”
Amazon has released a flurry of AI products across its cloud computing, e-commerce, devices and software divisions as it looks to keep pace with similar releases from competitors like OpenAI and Google.
Agentic shopping has recently emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the AI industry. Amazon has moved to build its own services, while blocking those created by its rivals. Jassy told investors last quarter that the company expects to partner with third-party agents at some point.
During the fourth quarter, Amazon shuttered its Fresh and Go grocery chains, marking the latest evolution of its brick-and-mortar strategy. The company expects to convert some of those stores into Whole Foods locations, and it will continue to offer Fresh grocery delivery.
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