• by Sarah Mahoney , Yesterday

While outsized gains in its AWS computing division and advertising business helped push Amazon's second-quarter results higher than Wall Street observers expected, the company's overall performance did not have many weak spots.

Net sales increased 20% to $200.6 billion, compared with $167.7 billion in last year's second quarter. And while operating income climbed 43% to $27.5 billion — impressive on its own — a $53.4 billion non-operating gain, primarily from Amazon's investment in Anthropic, pushed net income to $62.6 billion in the second quarter, compared with $18.2 billion in the comparable period.

The company also said it would amp up spending to stay competitive, increasing the year's capital expenditures forecast to $220 billion, a $20 billion increase.

On the company's earnings call, president and CEO Andy Jassy detailed gains in the company's ad business, including a 26% gain to $19.8 billion. "Sponsored Products continues to be our largest offering and a key driver of growth," he said, pointing also to growth in agentic and conversational ad experiences, including within Alexa+ and Alexa for Shopping.

He also called out advertising strength in sports, introducing 30 new advertisers to the NBA in its first year of the partnership, and inventory on Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA, and NASCAR all selling out.

AI-powered tools include Ads Agent, which saves hours of setup time and delivers 8% lower cost per impression and 6% lower cost per acquisition. This quarter, it expanded the offer to 11 new countries.

At AWS, segment sales increased 37% year-over-year to $42.2 billion, its fastest growth in 18 quarters.

Jassy was exceptionally bullish. "We long believed AWS could become a few hundred-billion-dollar revenue business,” he said, “and now believe it'll be at least double that, and very possibly be a trillion-dollar annual revenue business for us in time."

The company also claimed progress in grocery, including a 50% growth in the number of customers ordering perishable groceries since the start of the year.

For the coming quarter, net sales are expected to be between $197 billion and $202 billion, a gain of between 9% and 12% compared with the third quarter of 2025.