Pune, India | October 31, 2025- Amazon’s stock dramatically soared 14% in extended trading. The powerful surge followed news of the company’s robust financial results. Crucially, the Amazon Cloud Growth hit its fastest rate in nearly three years. Furthermore, the strong performance allowed Amazon to forecast quarterly sales above market estimates. Therefore, the cloud division is easing pressure on the company’s retail side.
The online giant is significantly benefiting from widespread corporate spending. Businesses are continuously pouring resources into Artificial Intelligence (AI) software development. This substantial cloud demand provides relief to the core e-commerce business. The retail arm is preparing for the crucial holiday season right now. However, consumer confidence remains weak due to global trade uncertainty. The company’s remarkable after-hours rally lifted its total market value by about $330 billion. Consequently, this gain would be Amazon’s biggest one-day percentage rise since 2015.
Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy expressed clear confidence in the results. “AWS is growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022,” Jassy stated publicly. The CEO noted strong demand in AI and core infrastructure. He confirmed the company is focused on accelerating its capacity. Therefore, the future outlook appears highly positive for the segment.
The cloud unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), reported a 20% revenue jump in the third quarter. This strong result ended in September. Analysts had only estimated a 17.95% increase for the period. Thus, the company easily exceeded expectations. This news helped Amazon quickly recover from a tough prior week. Earlier, an extended outage at AWS had affected many popular websites and consumer apps. The cloud segment is vital for Amazon’s overall health. It typically makes up about 60% of the company’s total operating income.
Amazon projects total net sales between $206 billion and $213 billion for the fourth quarter. This forecast is a clear indicator of strong internal performance. Analysts, on average, expected revenue closer to $208.12 billion. Mr. Jassy adopted an upbeat tone on a call with analysts. He spoke enthusiastically about the company’s current momentum. “I believe that we can continue to grow and click like this for a while,” he said. He further referenced advertising and retail sales as additional growth areas.
Meanwhile, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky discussed capital spending plans. He expects full-year capital expenditures to total around $125 billion. Importantly, he projected this figure would be even higher next year. Through the first three quarters, the company booked $89.9 billion in capital expenditures. Most of this money was spent on various AI projects.
AWS’s strong performance follows similar reports from its main rivals. Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud also reported stellar cloud revenue growth earlier in the week. The top tech companies are clearly signaling their commitment to AI spending. Companies like Amazon are introducing AI into nearly every part of their operations. The goal is to reduce costs and significantly boost productivity.
Therefore, Big Tech’s substantial spending on AI shows no immediate signs of slowing down. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently addressed the AI boom. He clarified he does not see it as a speculative bubble. He pointed out that today’s AI leaders “actually have earnings.” Powell added that AI investments are now a major source of overall economic growth. This includes spending on data centers, chips, and infrastructure.
Advertising also emerged as another significant area of growth. Sales in the advertising unit increased 24% from a year earlier. This brought the segment’s total to $17.7 billion. Amazon is increasing its focus on sponsored product listings. The company is also finding new spaces for high ad volume.
The Seattle-based company also disclosed a $1.8 billion charge for severance costs. This charge relates to its recent job cuts. The company announced it had cut 14,000 corporate jobs. This is part of a plan that could result in about 30,000 total job losses. Mr. Jassy explained the reductions were not primarily financial or AI-driven. He called the move a “culture” adjustment. The CEO explained that rapid growth created too many worker layers. This problem “can lead to slowing you down,” he concluded.
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