Amazon (AMZN) reported first quarter revenue and earnings per share that topped Wall Street estimates, with AWS posting its fastest growth in 15 quarters as the e-commerce giant continues its massive artificial intelligence build-out.
Amazon stock opened at a fresh intraday record high Thursday before reversing sharply, and falling to test its lowest levels of the week. Even with the reversal, the stock remains on track for its best month since July 2022, up nearly 25%.
The company reported earnings per share of $2.78, up from $1.59 a year ago. Revenue was $181.5 billion, up from $155.7 billion in the same quarter last year.
Analysts had expected earnings per share of $1.62 on revenue of $177.2 billion, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates.
Amazon’s all-important AWS cloud business generated $37.6 billion in revenue, ahead of estimates for $36.7 billion. AWS revenue excluding foreign exchange grew 28%, above expectations for 25.7% growth.
Analysts were broadly positive on the report, though some flagged that AWS growth may not have cleared higher investor expectations. Bloomberg Intelligence said AWS’s stronger-than-expected growth “confirms our view that the cloud provider is well placed to capture rising enterprise AI adoption.”
Citi analysts said Amazon delivered better-than-expected first quarter results and second quarter guidance across revenue and operating income, but noted AWS growth was “relatively in line” and “likely below buyside expectations.”
Jefferies analysts called the report a “solid Q1 rev beat w/ AWS re-accelerating to 28%,” though they noted that may have fallen short of the roughly 28% to 30% growth investors were looking for. Evercore ISI analysts said the quarter delivered Amazon’s “strongest top-line and consolidated margin print in several quarters.”
That balance is central to the Amazon story this quarter. Investors have been looking for evidence that the company’s AI infrastructure buildout is translating into faster cloud growth after Amazon’s roughly $200 billion capital spending plan pressured the stock following its prior earnings report.
The company’s AI demand story also got more support from new customer commitments. Amazon said OpenAI committed to consume about 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity through AWS beginning in 2027, while Anthropic secured up to 5 gigawatts of current and future generations of Amazon’s Trainium chips. The company also said it signed a deal with Meta (META) to deploy tens of millions of AWS Graviton cores.
Amazon also gave investors a clearer view of the demand behind that spending. CEO Andy Jassy said AWS’s cloud backlog — future business Amazon has already contracted but has not yet turned into revenue — jumped to $364 billion in the first quarter. That figure excludes Amazon’s recently announced Anthropic deal for more than $100 billion, making the backlog one of the clearest bull cases for Amazon’s AI spending boom.
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