Will Accelerating AWS Revenue Growth Drive AMZN Stock's 2026 Rally?

Core Insights - Amazon's cloud computing division has shown a strong recovery, achieving its best quarterly performance in nearly three years, setting the stage for growth driven by AI in 2026 [2] - The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Amazon's 2026 earnings is projected at $7.85 per share, reflecting a 9.46% increase from the previous year [3] AWS Performance - Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported $33 billion in third-quarter revenues, marking a 20.2% year-over-year growth, the highest rate in 11 quarters, indicating strong demand and effective infrastructure strategy [4] - AWS generated $11.4 billion in operating income during the quarter, showcasing profitability while scaling to meet increasing AI workload demands [4] Future Guidance - The fourth-quarter revenue guidance is set between $206 billion and $213 billion, indicating a growth of 10% to 13%, with operating income expected to be between $21 billion and $26 billion [5] - Amazon's cloud backlog reached $200 billion, providing significant revenue visibility and highlighting sustained customer demand for both traditional cloud services and emerging AI workloads [5] Innovation and AI Development - The AWS re:Invent conference introduced new AI and cloud innovations, including Graviton5 CPUs and Trainium3 UltraServers, aimed at enhancing AI training and inference capabilities [6][7] - New software capabilities, such as Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and Nova model family expansions, were launched to support advanced AI development [7][8] Infrastructure Investments - Amazon's capital expenditures reached $34.2 billion in Q3, totaling $89.9 billion for the year, with expectations to hit approximately $125 billion in 2025 [11] - The majority of these investments are directed towards revenue-generating equipment for AWS, including AI infrastructure and custom silicon development [11][12] Competitive Landscape - Amazon maintains its leadership in the cloud infrastructure market, despite competition from Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, which reported higher growth rates [19] - AWS revenues of $33 billion significantly surpass those of competitors, reinforcing Amazon's strong market position [19] Investment Outlook - Amazon shares have returned 12.8% over the past year, presenting an attractive entry point for investors as AWS growth momentum builds [13] - The stock's price-to-earnings ratio of 31.21x, while above the industry average, remains below its historical average, suggesting potential for multiple expansion as AWS growth accelerates [17][20]