Source: Amazon.com Q3 2026 earnings release
Amazon reported third quarter 2026 results on 29 October, and the cloud division is once again the star of the show. AWS net sales increased 39.3 percent to 45.98 billion dollars, which Amazon says is its fastest growth rate in nearly five years and represents a 184 billion dollar annualized revenue run rate. CEO Andy Jassy said he expects AWS revenue growth of more than 40 percent both in 2027 and in 2028, and repeated his view that AWS could become a trillion dollar revenue business within five to ten years.
Big growth, bigger bills
The rest of the report explains why shares still dropped around 7 percent in after hours trading. Total net sales rose 12 percent to 201.9 billion dollars, slightly below analyst expectations of about 202.2 billion, and earnings per share of 1.89 dollars missed the 1.96 dollar consensus. The more striking number is cash: Amazon reported negative free cash flow of 42.4 billion dollars for the trailing twelve months, driven by an increase of 94.8 billion dollars in property and equipment purchases, primarily artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company reiterated that it expects around 220 billion dollars in capital expenditures this year, and gave fourth quarter revenue guidance of 240 to 247 billion dollars whose midpoint sat below Wall Street expectations.
What this means for European cloud buyers
AWS operating income grew to 17.8 billion dollars from 11.4 billion dollars a year earlier, so the growth is profitable, but the broader signal for European organisations is that hyperscaler AI capacity is being consumed at extraordinary speed and is being financed with extraordinary spending. When the largest cloud provider in the market projects 40 percent annual growth for the next two years, capacity gets tighter in the most popular regions, pricing models shift toward longer commitments, and workload placement decisions start to have real cost and compliance consequences.
That makes this a good moment to review your own cloud strategy rather than simply renewing what you have. Are your workloads in the regions that fit your latency and data residency needs, including European sovereign options? Are you using commitments and savings plans effectively, or paying on demand prices in a market where everyone else is locking in capacity? And is your architecture portable enough that a provider’s capacity crunch or price change cannot hold your roadmap hostage? These are exactly the questions we help European businesses answer. If you want a structured review of your AWS or multi-cloud costs, capacity planning or European data residency strategy, contact us for professional advice.