Amazon reported a much stronger second quarter than Wall Street expected, with net sales reaching $200.6 billion. Analysts had been looking for about $196.43 billion in revenue, making the latest result a clear beat on the top line.
Profit surged even more sharply. Amazon posted quarterly profit of $62.6 billion, or $5.75 per share, far above the $1.82 per share expectation cited in the report. The headline result marked a more-than-threefold jump in profit for the period.
A key factor behind the outsized earnings gain was the payoff from Amazon's investment in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company. The quarter also showed continued momentum in Amazon's advertising business, where revenue increased 16% to $19.81 billion.
Taken together, the results point to multiple growth drivers inside Amazon, from its core sales engine to advertising and AI-related investments. The latest quarter suggests the company benefited both from steady business performance and from the rising value of its bet on Anthropic.
