Amazon $3 trillion market cap milestone follows AWS-led earnings rally

Amazon’s $3 trillion market cap milestone arrived Monday as shares hit a record high after the company’s second-quarter earnings report. For investors, the threshold reflects a sharp market response to faster cloud growth, while Amazon’s results also show how much capital it is putting into artificial intelligence infrastructure.

CNBC reported that Amazon’s market value moved above $3 trillion during Monday trading following the July 30 report. The outlet said shares were up roughly 4% at the time it described; its embedded quote later showed Amazon at $285.69, up 5.20%, at 11:29 a.m. EDT. Those were intraday readings, rather than closing prices.

Why did Amazon cross a $3 trillion market cap?

Amazon’s July 30 earnings release reported second-quarter net sales of $200.6 billion, a 20% increase from a year earlier. Sales at Amazon Web Services, its cloud-computing unit, climbed 37% to $42.2 billion. Amazon said that was AWS’s fastest growth in 18 quarters.

CNBC reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.97, compared with analysts’ estimate of $1.82, and revenue of $200.61 billion versus an estimated $196.47 billion. Amazon’s own release reported net income of $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per diluted share, compared with $18.2 billion, or $1.68 per diluted share, a year earlier.

The two per-share figures describe different measures. CNBC identified its figure as adjusted earnings per share, while Amazon reported its official diluted earnings per share. The available disclosures do not provide the methodology behind CNBC’s adjustment.

What should investors know about Amazon’s reported profit?

Amazon said its quarterly net income included $53.4 billion of non-operating pretax other income, primarily tied to its investments in Anthropic. Operating income, which measures profit from the company’s businesses before non-operating items, was $27.5 billion, up from $19.2 billion a year earlier, according to Amazon.

Amazon also reported that trailing-12-month free cash flow, the cash remaining after operating expenses and capital investment, was a $7.6 billion outflow. That compared with an $18.2 billion inflow a year earlier. The company attributed the shift primarily to a $66.1 billion year-over-year increase in property-and-equipment purchases, primarily for AI investments.

The company said its AWS AI business and chips business each passed a $25 billion annual revenue run rate, which is a company measure that annualizes a current pace of revenue. Amazon had said in February that it expected about $200 billion in 2026 capital expenditures across the company.

Market capitalization is a company’s share price multiplied by its shares outstanding. It can move above or below a round-number threshold during a trading day as the stock price changes. CNBC’s report establishes that Amazon crossed $3 trillion intraday, not that it finished the session at that level.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.