Amazon’s market capitalization crossed the $3 trillion threshold for the first time on August 3, 2026, following a strong second-quarter earnings report that highlighted the company’s accelerating cloud growth driven by artificial intelligence demand.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant’s stock gained approximately 5% to reach a record near $285, pushing its 2026 gains above 23%. The rally came after Amazon reported its fastest cloud growth in more than four years, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenue surging 37% year-over-year to $42.2 billion—well above the market estimate of $40.5 billion.
Amazon became the fifth company to achieve a $3 trillion market capitalization, joining Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and NVIDIA. NVIDIA still holds the highest market value, near $5 trillion. Amazon first reached a $2 trillion valuation in June 2024, adding another trillion dollars in just over two years as cloud sales, advertising revenue, and retail activity expanded.
AWS Revenue Beats Forecasts
AWS generated $42.2 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 37% from the same period last year. The result exceeded market expectations and marked AWS’s strongest growth rate in 18 quarters. Analysts had expected about $40.5 billion, leaving the cloud unit nearly $1.7 billion above the consensus forecast.
Total Amazon revenue reached approximately $200.6 billion, rising 20% from the previous year and surpassing Wall Street forecasts near $197 billion. The AWS contract backlog increased to $496 billion from $364 billion in the previous quarter, signaling strong future demand.
Artificial intelligence workloads drove more demand for computing power, storage, and chips. Amazon said its AI and chip businesses each passed annual revenue run rates of $25 billion. AWS has also expanded agreements with OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and other corporate customers.
Outside cloud services, Amazon reported strong growth. Advertising revenue increased 26% to $19.8 billion. The retail business also benefited from Prime Day sales and faster delivery services across more locations.
Amazon Raises 2026 Spending Plan
Amazon raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $220 billion from $200 billion. Chief Executive Andy Jassy linked the increase partly to higher memory prices and continued investment in data centers, chips, and AI systems.
“We will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026,” Jassy said, adding that demand already booked for 2028 was ‘striking,’ pointing to long-term customer commitments.
However, the higher spending affected cash flow. Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $7.6 billion, compared with positive free cash flow of $18.2 billion one year earlier. The company spent $54.2 billion on property and equipment during the quarter.
Amazon’s results arrived during a broad review of technology spending. Microsoft also reported strong Azure growth, while Google Cloud posted faster sales growth. Investors focused on whether rising cloud revenue could keep pace with spending on servers, chips, and data centers.
Amazon’s $3 trillion valuation placed the company among a small group of technology firms that have reached the level. Its latest market value followed stronger AWS growth, higher company revenue, and a larger infrastructure budget for 2026.
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