Amazon surpassed Wall Street expectations in the second quarter, posting earnings per share of $5.75 against estimates of $1.82, fueled by a massive revaluation of its investment in Anthropic. Net income reached $62.6 billion, boosted significantly by a $53.4 billion pre-tax book gain on Amazon's 21% stake in the AI startup, which filed a confidential IPO at a $965 billion valuation.
Total revenue rose 20% to $200.6 billion, with Amazon Web Services generating $42.2 billion in quarterly sales, a 37% year-over-year increase. The company's AI and custom chip businesses each exceeded a $25 billion annual run rate, and AWS backlog reached $496 billion.
Despite the profit surge, trailing twelve-month free cash flow fell to negative $7.6 billion as the company projected 2026 capital expenditures of $220 billion. Amazon guided third-quarter revenue between $197 billion and $202 billion.