In the first quarter ended March 31, net sales at Amazon rose 17%, to $181.5 billion. Excluding favorable foreign currency fluctuations, net sales were up 15%. North American sales rose 12%, to $104.1 billion, and international sales jumped 19% to $39.8 million, or 11% excluding foreign currency fluctuations. Sales at AWS, the cloud computing and web services division, were up 28%, to $37.6 billion.
In the quarter, net income jumped 77%, to $30.3 billion, which the company largely attributed to income from its investment in Anthropic.
Sales and earnings beat analysts' expectations, leading to a rise this morning of about 3% in after-market trading for Amazon stock.
Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy said in part, "AWS is growing 28% (our fastest growth in 15 quarters) on a very large base, our chips business topped a $20 billion revenue run rate (growing triple digits year-over-year), Advertising grew to over $70 billion in TTM revenue, and unit growth in our Stores reached 15% (the highest since the tail end of covid lockdowns). We also hit exciting milestones with delivery speed (more than 1 billion items same-day or overnight in 2026 and counting), Project Hail Mary (nearly $615 million at the box office to date and the second most successful non-sequel, non-franchise opening of recent memory), and Amazon Leo continues to resonate with prospective customers, with Delta Airlines the latest to sign on. We're in the middle of some of the biggest inflections of our lifetime, we're well positioned to lead, and I'm very optimistic about what's ahead for our customers and Amazon."
Amazon capital spending in the first quarter was $43.2 billion, mostly on AWS and generative AI, the Wall Street Journal reported. For the full year, Amazon intends to spend about $200 billion, a 60% increase from 2025. The result has meant that the company's free cash flow dropped to $1.2 billion in the past 12 months from $25.9 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Now the largest U.S. company by revenue, in part because it "invested heavily in speedier delivery and new categories, like luxury goods and cars," the Journal continued, Amazon is now "rolling out new delivery centers designed to ship items to customers in 20 minutes, while also investing in new technologies like humanoid robots and aerial drones. By the end of the year, around 30 million customers will have access to drone delivery, the company has said."
Amazon estimated that in the second quarter, net sales will grow between 16% and 19%, to between $194 billion and $199 billion, and operating income will be between $20 billion and $24 billion.